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Forty Years 

IN 

NORTH DAKOTA 



Forty Years 

IN 

ISrORTH DAKOTA 



IN RELATION TO GRAND FORKS COUNTY 




LARIMOBE, N. D. 

PRINTHD BY H. V. ARNOLD 

1921 



■hi 



Pafoliaher'e Booklet No. 2i, 



?&IKTED FOE DISTBIBUTIOM IK LA&UlGam 

Author 



PREFACE 

Tbis wjoirk was cootemplated as probable for isaet 
> %7 means of oar private outfit of printing material 
A^ .r^^^^r some tica« befor« the year came around that com* 
pleied forty yeare resideace here. The 'first nine year« 
^}f that period was under territorial fOTernment, when 
t&e two states of Kortb and South Dakota comprised a 
tfiBgle large territory. Tbas work as a whole is not so 
much a record of personal experiences (though for the 
earlier part of it these form a considerable portion) a« 
it is an account of observed facts and conditions in 
(different decades, and of observed development, both 
in town and the surrounding country. Some attention 
ba9 been given to customs in vogue and the life condi- 
tions of each decade aT>d ttbe changes that bare modi^edl 
them from what th^y were previously. 

The pioneer period round LarimoFe was short, extend* 
ing from 1878 to 1882. The agricultural development 
of the county itself bad hardly more than begun in t¥e 
iflrst of the years mentioned. After the year 1881 that 
kind of development in the Elk Valley progrfissed very 
rapidly. The creation of Urge farms in the wester^ 
part of the county rendered the bintory of eaob town- 
ship afi'ected durinsr the -period ccvered, somewhat 
different from what otherwise would have been th<^ 
case, since the tendency of the large farms waa towar4 
lessening a larger resident agricoltoral population. 

[The boy Fred A. Wiijrht mentlone d in the flrf t cbapt>»r at b*?-^ 
companding ns to North Dakota, left Rraud Forks for CMe&g^ In 
the spring of 18Sl. He reappeared here In the spring of 188S aaft , 
worked a month oo the Arnold farm. He Bpent most pf hie «i*« 

•Itfein Chicago and diedthero teeeuBher I IJDil?.] 



CONTENTS 

'L I'ii© Jottra«y to North Dakota 5— 26t 

II. Eatabliehing ft 8«tfclemont 27—42 

III. Subdiyision of the Township 43—54 

IV. Aflfalra in Eightj-oae 55—70 

V. The Boom Year and Later 71—90 

VI. Lagging Years for Town and Country 91—107 
YII. The Late Eighties and Early Nineties 108—127 
VIIL Railroad Diviiion Times 128—159 
IX. After DiviiioB RemoTal 160—172 

Business Places and Vocations in 1920, 173 
Larimore Necrology 1910 to I9?0, 175 



Forty Years 

IN 

NORTH DAKOTA 



I. 

THE JOURNEY TO NORTH DAKOTA 

nPBE Southeastern counties of Minnesota were 
^ quite generally settled by emigrants from the 
eastern states during the decade of the fifties. No 
8mail proportion of these settlers came frona the 
8tate of New York and from the New England 
«^.ates. By the ye-ar 1860 the counties of south* 
eastern Minnesota had become fairly well settled. 
It was a region of small farms from forty to two 
hundred or more acres. The rolling prairie tracts^ 
woods and bluff-lined valleys and ravines of the 
counties adjacent to the Mississippi river did not 
adrr.it of lartre estates. Before the Civil war the 
method of disposing of government lands was to 
sell it directly to the settlers at $1.25 per acre at 
land offices and in amount by forties, eighties and 
quarter-sections. Hence settlers purchased land 
according to their means, receiving a land office 
receipt until their eovernment patent or deed wa« 
forwarded from Washington. 

For a Ion a: term of years these Minnesota settle* 
ments made but slow progress in comparison with 



t i^ilT^ YEAR3 IN MORTH ©AROTA 

those made In eBstarn North North DakoU during 
;he early eighties, thfjujrh her« condition! were 
<iifferent mainly o»'in^ to railroad conatruction. 
In Houston County, Mi in., the first rails were 
laid in 1865. On the farms during the most of the 
«xti^^3 th? rt^idences were generally of a plain, in^ 
different character, aome of them being log houses* 
There were but few framed barns in the section of 
the county in which the writer resided, the lack of 
97hich waa obviated by constructing straw bams, 
f\» they were called, built of large crotches set in 
the ground, poles and fence rails covered over and 
around th*»ra with wheat straw in threshing time. 
The frames of these structures might last a lone 
time but the straw had to be renewed each year. 
In gome cases the sides were built of logs but cof» 
>iTei like the others with straw, piled up and round* 
iid no as to shed rain. The hogs and cattle raised 
by the farmers were of the common western sort, 
little or no attention being paid in the sixtiet in 
regard to improving breeds. 

The raising of wheat was the principal market* 
Me product. Corn was raised mainly for hogi 
^nd oats for horses. Onlr three or four farmers in 
the community, comprising some forty families, 
had frranaries on their premises, and other com* 
munitiea in the county were probably hardly any 
better ofP. As in the case of barns, makeshifts 
had to be provided, such as building bins of fence 
rails lined and covered over with straw, or bins of 
scantling and pine boards also covered with straw* 
The marketing of a load of wheat, about fortf 



f«« JOURMSY TJ NORTH DAKOTA 7 

bushels, was ao small task. Every farmer had the 
eotnmoQ farm wagon; the body had to lifted off 
the wheels and bolsters and placed on the ground 
near the bin; a fanning- mill was set in one end of 
the wagon body and the wheat cleaned and sacked. 
The wagon body bring replaced, the sacks. «ach 
holding a little over two bushels, were loaded into 
it and the wheels being greased the load was ready 
for the long haul to market. The community roen^ 
tioned, called Portland Prairie, i? about fourteen 
tniles back from the Mississippi river and some five 
hundred feet higher than the river bottom lands* 
It is not comprised in any one township and has 
some extension across the state line into Iowa. The 
market towns on the river were then Brownsville, 
Minn., and Lansing, Iowa, both about 22 miles 
distant which involved staying in town over night. 
There were three school houses in the commiin* 
ity each about two miles from one another. In 
one ®f them religious services were held each al«» 
ternate Sunday. The mail came from Brownsville 
once a week, bringing besides letters, weekly and 
monthly publications, since daily papers formed no 
part of the contents of the mail bag. During most 
of the decade the people got their flour, feed and 
meal ground at a mill in a creek valley south acroas 
the Iowa state line four to six miles distant from 
different farms of the community. From aix to 
eight miles due north is located Caledonia, county 
seat of Houston County, already something of « 
village in those days. Pere the farmers of tht 
surrounding country did much of their tradifig« 



i 9QWfX TSUM m liOaTH DAKOTA 

Hq commuQity in a proj^ressive state such as is 
Ulasesota, was apt to remain stationary for man^f 
jears though it is true that those remote from 
iai^road coxntnunication made only slow progresa 
for more than a decade after the pioneer period of 
the niddle and late fifties had passed. A railroad 
had been built across the northern part of the 
fouoty in the Root river valley in 1865 and '66, but 
beinff about twenty miles distant it was too far 
away to influence very ciuch eommunites in the 
southern part of the county, in 1872 the west side 
ffiver line was constructed alonsr the eastern ?«#£re 
iif the county* A srnall miirket town called New 
Albin was built on this line la the northeast cornet 
?f Iowa, and this beins: some fourteen miles dis- 
tant, the farmers could now take « load of whea^, 
^ere and return home with their purchasea^^bt 
^ame day. In 1879 a narrow gBx^gt railroad or one 
with a three feet track was eonstructed mere ceo* 
trally thru the county, starting from the river lin« 
and terminating at Preston, in Fillmore County, 
having a length of 56 miles. Locomotives, cars, 
etc., on such lines were about one- third smaller or 
lighter than what was then common to the standard 
Sines. This road made Caledonia a market town, 
especially for hogs and cattle. After 22 years use 
the three feet track was altered to the standard 
gauge of 4 feet 8^ inches. 

Considerable progress was mpid^ in the Portland 
Prairie community during the decide of the seven* 
ties. Some new and larger bouses were built and 
ot^^l*s were made CDore poomy by fidditip^; p)prA 



rsLVL lovwonr to wortr Dakota u 

framed barntt and crranariet were added to the few 
in the eommuaity previously; drilled wells beiran 
eominfi: into use on some of the farms; moreover 
light wagoDS and buggies and musical instrumenta 
became more common than before and in 1876 a 
church was erected in the community. From 1870 
the people had semi-weekly mail service. A last 
item in the way of change was that the old decaying 
rail fences began to be replaced on the farms by 
the kind constructed of oak posts and pine boardt. 

The foregoing sketch is descriptive of the com- 
munity in Minnesota from which there emigrated 
k the spring of 1880 the first three occupanta U 
Larimore township in Grand Forks County, K. D. 
In respect to the development of the westera part 
of this county, to be referred to lately thf eketdi 
may be serviceable by way of contrast, though th0 
Minnesota community had a priority of beginning 
by about 26 years, 

Ellery C. Arnold was born near Manvflle, R. !.• 
July 4, 1828. His ancestry had lived in New Fng* 
land since about 1636. From 1846 to 1866 tho 
family to which he belonged resided at Bridgetoo* 
a village adjacent to Pascoag, R. I. From 1861 to 
1854 he was with his father, Amos Arnold, In Cal- 
ifornia durirg the gold mining period. In 1866 
he was married to Adeline A. Steere of the aamo 
village in which his father's femily resided. Tho 
same year Amos AmoW and family moved to Tan- 
ielBon, Coon. About that time the elder Mr. Arnold 
purchased of a Hhode ialand neighbor % quMxtu 



^.■. 



10 mi-it z YEAfU W HOKrH DAKOTA 

i^ectiofi of lacid in the Mi?3ne3ota community thatl 
haa baen mentioned, and ou recommendation of a 
son who had g-occ west in the spring of 1856. In 
i86l E. C. Arnold ana fas^ily moved out there and 
wflg on the journey when the Civil war broke out. 
Later in the yearhi^i father went to Minnesota to 
9ee his land and while there he had the local car- 
penters build a houiie on it. No small part of the 
community had, in fact, been settled by families 
Xrom the neighborhood of Pascoag and from Black* 
Dtone, Mass., just over the Rhode Island line. In 
June, 18G4, Mr. Arnold with the portion of bit 
family utill at home, moved from Danielson to the 
west. E. C- Arnold and some other men of the 
community were drafted late in the fall of 1864 
and had to serve about a year in the Federal army, 
$h?ir regiment (5th Minn.) being retained ia the 
South some months after the close of the war for 
jjCarriiion duty. 

E. C Arnold had three children, Horace F., bona 
At Danielson, Conn., June 19, 1867; Addie L., born 
in same town June 2'i, 1S60; and Smma C, bora 
at Portland Prairie, Minnesota, August 14. 1864, 
Amos Arnold had twelve children. Ellery C, beinfl: 
the oldest and Henry V., the vounpest, the last born 
atBridgeton, R. I., March 26, 1848. 

We shall next make some brief statement of the 
causes whereby in the early eighties Houston 
County was depleted of nearly two thousand of ita 
population. It is not a large county, being about 
twenty-four qfiilea square. coinpHsiPff ^^^ square 



TKli XuUU^lSY TO WOUrH DAKOTA 11 

^iWn; ia 1675 it conUiued 16,566 population. At 
^aa beefi iadicfited, the raising: of wheat was the 
«hief depeadence. ir. 1878 the crop was unusually 
Ei^ht and of poor QDfciit> tt.d the oext year the 
farmers said that which was raised was '*no better 
than chicicen fetd." The ultimate failure of wheat 
Taising in southern Minaeaota and northern Iowa 
had been I'oresecM by many from the analofi:y of the 
older 8tAt<*B and now the people of those sectioni 
fci^nd themseivea confronted with the reality. It 
'?7a3 said by some that farmers must pay naore 
attention io stock raising with improved breeds of 
both hogs and cattle. But there were hundreds 
ci the small farmers who were unable to cope with 
the changed situation, sinee to adjust matters ta 
the required new conditions would take several 
yearu« Most of the small farms had mortgages ott 
them and their owners saw little hope of improv« 
|ng their prospects except by emigration to newer 
parts of west. Hundreds of the small farmerai 
therefore either turned their places over to the 
mortiragora or sold them to their more prosperous 
aeighbors subject to any mortgages on them, and 
In canvas cov^^red wagons they journeyed to west^ 
ern Minnesota, Dakota Territory and Nebraska. 
Some emigration from Houston County had taken 
place in the late seventies for the census returns 
for 1880 show a decrease in population of 227 less 
than the state census of 1875. The government 
censiJD of 16P0 p^eve the county 14,653 population 
and its Isrge decrease after IS70 probably has never 
eioce boeo regatne4« 



S2 I'OtCT* YEAIW IN ^R/KTH DAKOTA 

In the spring of 1879, H. F. Arnold accompanied 
A family of his acquaintance who resided near 
Hokah, Minn., and who were emigrating, to North 
Dakota, to where they located rear Valley City. He 
returned to the home community late the next fall 
in much better health than when he had left it the 
prev iou3 spring. Hi3 account of the country and 
«f what were then its prospects, induced his father 
|o follow the example of others who had already 
emigrated or intended to do so in the following 
spring. E. C. Arnold only had a fifty acre farm 
with a mortgage of a few hundred dollars on it» 
*ad under the existing wheat situation the outlook 
for the future was not promising. The publisher 
of this pamphlet at once decided to accompaAy the 
party when the project was first discuased. 

Early in April, IbHQ, some days were spent in 
iimking preparations for a long journey with ox 
teams. Two farm wagons had to be provided with 
bows shaved out of long, slender saplings as framea 
for the canvas coverings of the wagons. The space 
inside was made wider th|in usual by blocking out 
the lower ends of the bows where they were bolt- 
ed to the sides of the wagons. Both H, F. Arnold 
and n yse:f had Pets of carpenters tools so that 
ncne had to be borrowed of neighbors. And the 
task ot fitting out and repairing the wagons re- 
quired the use of many tools. April had come in 
warm and pleasant so we could work comfortably 
out of doors. Finally the wagons were rather 
heavily loaded with household goods, trunks, bed^ 
ding, and some light Carfning i^nplements, etc. 



THK iovnHut Ta inorts Dakota 13 

The one span of horses oa the place was sold with 
eome other thiasrs and five yoke af oxen purchased 
at $80 to $90 per yoke, the fifth pair having: been 
trained to pui) in harnesses. This crave two yoke 
of oxen to each team and an extra pair of animals 
to change off, if need be, with any of the other 
^our yoke of oxen. A cow and grown colt were 
^Iso taken along. 

There accompanied us a boy of eighteen yeara 
of age named Frederick A. Wright, son of a near 
.^aeighbor. His father told me privately that he 
was willing to let his son leave home at that age 
80 as to get some experience in the world. There 
were three boys in the family of which Fred waa 
the oldest, but according to current report they 
Had not been brought up on the part of their father 
In the way that is apt to make boys contented witli 
their home life. Fred brought to E. C. Arnold's 
place just prior to our departure a common sized 
trunk well tilled with his belongings. Three yeara 
later he told me that if he was to experience em- 
igrating again he would take with him as baggage 
nothing more than a valise or grip. 

On the 12th of April, 1880. after passing thn» 
the village of Spring Grove, located on a plateau, we 
pulled out of Houston County near a small village 
called Riceford. This plac^ had already begaii 
to show the effects of the construction of th^ 
narrow gauge in so far as vacant sites were iq 
evidence from which buildings had been moved to 
to the new village of Mabei a few miles distut* 



ill f*Olcrt VBSAtU IW NORTH &AKOTA 

The ratiroad had taken in Spring Grove but had 
Vef t Ricef ord to one &idie two or three miles, perhapa 
o^ringr to its location in a creek valley some seventy- 
five feet deep. The part of Fillmore County first, 
entered is more level and prairie-like and less cut 
by hills and valleys than Houston County. This is 
owing to a greater distance from the Mississippi 
river, for westward, creek and river valleys become 
less deep- We camped three nights within the 
limits of Fillmore County. The second stop w»i 
made within a mile of Preston and on the eastern 
edge of Camp Creek valley down which the railroad 
runs before swinging into the south fork of Root 
River valley in which Preston is located. 

We had started out on the journey with a good 
supply of baked bread and groceries and a cook 
atove was carried in the rear end of one of the 
wagons where it could be lifted out and used, if 
Eeed be, Sundays, sinee it was made a point to lay 
over on those days and give the animals and our« 
selves a rest. Aboutalt that was needed for the 
ordinary camp halts was a pot. a skillet for coffee, 
A few tin plates and tabte knives. The loads in the 
wagons were arranged so as to sleep upon them in 
quilts and blankets. The night halts were usually 
by the roadside not far f com some farm house so 
as to obtain hay for the animals. At first some 
fifteen miles per day were made, but after gettiofip 
past the hilly country of southeastern Minnesota, 
long stretches of level road with few and moderate 
ascents began to occur, so that this average wai 
increased to eighteen or twenty milea. 



TBK iOVKNKf TO HfORTS DAKOTA IS 

Entering Preston the next morninf » April 14th. 
we made a brief stop there. This place was then 
about the size that Larinnore is now, the countf 
seat of Fillmore County, and had a population of 
1.825 that year. This county lost 2,196 of iU pop- 
ulation during: the eighties. North Dakota gaining 
«o small part of this number. Preston is built oo 
<^ terrace not very high above the river plain, th^ 
depot of the narrow gauge being at the foot of it. 
Crossing over an elevated tract of country to the 
aorth of towut the road next descended into a 
creek valley. After crossing the stream the road 
struck up a branch valley or ravine and we came 
out of it on the common country leirel at a small 
village called FounUin, a station on the Southern 
Minnesota railroad. Passing some little distance 
beyond this place the road descended a long slope 
into another creek valley and next we had to pull 
over another broad upland terrane about two milea 
over between valleys. This was the last bold hill 
we encountered. We were now in the valley of 
the north fork of Root river and camped that night 
near Chatfield, the end of a branch line of railroad 
from the north. This town is located on a bench 
or high terrace considerably above the valley bot- 
torn land and the railroad. This was the third and 
last night that we camped in Fillmore County. 

Soon after leaving Chatfield we were in Olmsted 
County. Both the highway and the railroad ran 
northward up a small creek valley of moderate 
depth, and near its head we followed a road west- 
ward toward Rocheatere Tkte country was mvf 



16 f^Ktt YiBAtia CN tH&tVA DAKOTA 

moreievet than heretofore, and the ascents and 
descents, where encoantered on the roads, were of 
a gentle order, hence we beg:aa making more miles 
per day. We camped next near a small village 
named Marion. On looking out of the wagons 
the next morning, April i6th, we found that two 
inches of snow had fallen during the night The 
road was somewhat sandy and the snow melting 
off early in the forenoon we pushed on to Rochester, 
This was the larg^t town thus far reached on the 
journey, having a popuiation of 6,103 that year. 
We made a short stop here and on leaving took a 
road leading northwest toward St. Paul, presum* 
Ably a stage road before railroad days in Minne^ 
fiota, but Rochester was a railroad point in 1864. 

Before reaching Cannon Fails, 44 miles from 
Ivochester as the roads ran, we passed thru placet 
Xi&med Oronoco, Pine Island and Zumbrota, th«i 
latter located in the valley of the Zumbro river 
and the terminus of another narrow guage track 
that came up the valley from Wabasha. After A 
short stay in this town we passed up the valley two 
or three miles and then pulled up a moderate hil( 
to the common country level and went into eamp 
beside a poplar grove. We were now in Goodhue 
County, and the next day being Sunday, April 18, 
we did not resume our journey until Monday mora* 
ing and then passed on to Cannon Falls and beyond* 
Soon after emerging out of the valley of Canno^ 
river we entered Dakota County, and for a die* 
tance of 35 miles to St. Paul no other towns were 
Ine^t with on the route followed. 



tm JotfaNfff TO i^oRrK dakota 11 

Aiter paaaiaff thru Caaaon Falls we traveled ii» 
d nortiiward direction much of the way on the high 
Und above the Missiaiippi, which is elevated a little 
»ver three hundred feet above the river itaelf . 
Approaching St. Paul, a long descent was made ta 
H bridge end which in crossing the river has agrad* 
tiai upward slant to the other end at the loot of 
Wabasha street, so that small steamboats can pats 
fiader that portion of it. We had no occasion ta 
tarry long in St. PauU but pulling up the street 
iibout a half mile to what was then the end of it, 
we bore westward to Minneapolis, i had been ia 
both cities previously, in 1873 and 1878, at whic^ 
time they were far from being what they are now 
both in size and population. 

Some two miles out of the city, as its oiatskirU 
then existed, we passed on the country road the 
smoking ruins of a building evidently burned dowa 
the previous night, Several years later I learned 
that it had been (tailed the ''old dub house." Most 
of the country between the twin cities was then 
open and of the nature of farms, though nowgea- 
erally built over. The day we passed thru St 
Paul was April 21st, and we camped that night 
somewhere between the two cities. The next 
forenoon we passed the State University and stop. 
ped several hours in the business part of the last 
Side, Minneapolis, as H. P. Arnold wished to look 
tip and call on a university student who waa from 
our home community; his father also had a CiviJ 
war time acquaintance to find- Meaawhilt Fred 
and I remained witb th^ teapui. 



M FOMfr «fii^«t;» KK MCWtTB DAKOTA 

The next objective piiot, %% one of the stagres ot 
the jouFDey, was St. QlQud , 64 miles distant f roA 
Minaeapoiia. W^ foiiowed the east side of the 
river, both th^ highw^ay aad a railroad running 
aorth westerly on the river plain. In this shortet 
stretch of the journey v9e passed thra Anoka and 
Sherburne cauaties and the villages of Anoka an^ 
£lk River, camping ia the last named place and 
ileeping under a shed instead of in the wagoaa. 
y^e lay oyer Sunday, April 25th, within two miles 
of St. Cloud. On this oe^asion the cook stove waa 
temporarily taken out of the wagon for use in the 
camp. On aay day of our journey we were aeciia* 
;tomed to make noaa halts for dinner and to rest 
and feed the stock, bags of corn or ground feH 
oceasionally being purchafied in towns where some 
^top was made. 

At St. Cloud the Mississippi runs thru a narrow 
gorge the cliffs of which rise some sixty feet above 
the water, spanned by both wagon and railroad 
"bridges. Crossing the highway bridge we were in 
St. Cloud, at that time a town of 2.462 inhabiUnts 
and county seat of Stearns County. After a stop 
of an hour or more in this town we resumed the 
journey. Ever since leaving Fillmore County we 
had seen granite bowlders near the roads, but the 
bedrocks were of limestone and sandstone, the 
bowlders belonging to the glacial drift. But in the 
t)eighborhood of St. Cloud granite in place begaa 
%o be observed in the form of low ledges or bosses 
^veral rods in diameter protruding above the sur* 
face imd small lakes h^ui occur. Neither laket 



>3»r fflacial drift exists in Houston County for that 
«'e£:ioQ is part of what K^clogiata call 'The Driftless 
Area of the Upper Mississippi River." 

From St. Cloud we tdck a route that diverged 
^jieveral miles south of the Great Northern railroad, 
^hen called the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba* 
i>ut we reached this line agrain at Sauk Center, 42 
ttiiles from St. Cloud. Thereafter all the way to 
Fergus Falls, a third stage of the journey and a 
long one, the road did not diverge far from the 
railroad. In fur trading times this route had been 
4 Eled Kiver cart trail to St. Cloud and earlier to 
St. Paul; in 1859 ft became a stage road and when 
the railroad was built during the seventies it took 
essentially the route that had been marked out by 
the Red River cart ti^aina. Stearns County is quite 
a large one, but We pulled cut of it April SO and 
crossing the southwest part of Todd County, w^ 
entered Osakis in Douglas Caunty, This place is 
located at the southern erM of a lake of the same 
name which is seren miles long and two or three 
miles in width. We Went on to Alexandria where 
we arrived May 1st. 

We camped that night about two miles out from 
town between two lakes, Bdme fifteen or twenty 
rods apart, the railroad alsopassing between them. 
A creek connected the lakes and that evening a 
party of men and boys came out from Alexandrim 
to fish in the stream bv torchlight, remaining fat 
into the night They appeared to have made qult^ 
a haul as they left several suckers with us before 
returning to town. Next day being SQAdfty» w^ 



rercaiaeti id eamp by the lake, havins: fried (ish 
that day. A U or wegla^z aeighbor had emiRrateH 
to Oousrias County in 1678 and havinir learned ia 
Alexandria his loeation near the road that we wer« 
travelins:, we stopped for about a half hour to seft 
and talk with him* The country for miles toward 
Fergus Falls was then but sparsely settled and 
away from the railroad probably not at all. It 
abounded with lakes, timber and gravel knolls. 
&nd was frequented by water fowl, including pel* 
ican8> Pasainif thru two small villages far apart* 
Evanssrille and Pomme de Terre, we crossed a low 
divide where waters take their course either to 
the Gulf of Mexico or Hudson Bay, and a few 
miles farther on we entered Fergus Falls May 6tll« 
this stage of our journey comprising approximate* 
ly l'S& miles fby mere rcracl irt*Qkoning, though th« 
distance from St. Cloud to Fergus Falls by railroad 
isll£ miles. These stages were comparable t# 
divisions on a long railroad )ine, in our case mereljF 
maz^ked by cities cr large towns on the route. 

Fergus Falls was quite a large town at thattha^ 
having water power to run its mills and located 09 
t)tter Tail river, !iavitfg 1636 population. We next 
bore northwest thru the southwestern part of Ottat 
Tail County, the ojeetive point now being Fargo^ 
about sixty miles distant by the toads. We pasael 
thru two or three small railroad villages on th4 
moderately elevated land between the Otter Ta^ 
and Red rivers, and next came upon the Barnes 
vilie flats, a moist tract in the broad valley of Red 
river « We bad aomatroubie in erotiiog this tracts 



TbLK Jl>i;KH«t TO VtORTBL DAKOTA 21 

«s the narrow tires of the rear wagron sometimes 
cut thru the prairie turf, letting the fcri^ard 
wheels dowQ into a whitish, putty-like clay and 
nearly to their hubs. There was no resource but 
to partially unload the wagon and have the oxen 
pull it out. We h:-id several experiences of this 
sort until we reached more firm ground. We 
camped on the flats over Sunday in sight of Barnes* 
^iile some three miled away, but this place was left 
:o one side. The last camp for a night in Minne* 
*,ota, and in Clay County, was made within two 
.nniles of Moorhead, The Wright boy, curious te 
*ee Fargro, footed it to that place in the evening 
^nd returned to the camp late at night. He found 
^argo a smaller place and Red river less wide there 
5han he had expected. 

Ihe next forenoon. May U. we passed thru Moor* 
kiead and going down a moderate slope of the river 
bank we crossed a low bridge over Red river, then 
up a similar slope into Jpargo. The wagon bridge 
was just below the higher Northern Pacific railroad 
bridge which spanned the river from the top of 
one bank to the other without any intervening 
pier. For the convenience of people on foot a 
walkway, with railings, had been provided alongt 
the north side of the railroad bridge on about the 
same level as the track, Just below the wagoi^ 
bridge was the steamboat landing of that time. 
Fargo was then not very much larger than Lari* 
more is now and had 2,693 inhabitants that year« 
Moorhead was a smaller place but contaiiied ft 
steam flour mill on the river b^ik. 



M I^KTr VBJtRi IN WORTH DAKOTA 

We were now ia Cais Couaty, Dakota Tesritory. 
The teams were unhitched for the day on some 
vacant lots north of the track and not far from 
the Headquarters Hotel, which in those days was 
also the Northern Pacific railroad depot. No other 
railroad then entered Farg^o. Near where we had 
stopped a brick rouadhouae was being torn down, 
for the railroad company had moved their yards 
farther out from town. No steamboats come to 
i^'argo now but the day we were there two, the 
*'Pluck" and the "Selkirk" lay moored in the 
river, in the afternoon the last named boat de* 
parted down stream with barges attached, loaded 
with freig-ht and agricultural machinery. Ourinfit 
the day H. F. Arnold traded off the horse that had 
been brought along tlhua far, for some breaking 
plows. To load them, e&riy in the evening we 
hitched up and wer»t to a machinery stand an<i 
^then pulled out of town to its western outskirts 
where we camped for the night. The Wright boy 
was absent when these movements were made and 
did not know where to find us. He passed the 
iTiight in some way \>n Fargo and next day struck 
out on foot for Casseiton. following the railroad, 
as he knew that would be our next stopping point. 

We left Fargo on the morning of May 12th and 
taking a road to the south of the Northern Pacific 
railroad, we commenced what was to be the last 
long stage of our journey- We traveled westerly^ 
crossing the Sheyenne river a few miles out from 
Fargo, but did not reach Casseiton that day. The 
next forenoon we crossed part of the Cass Farm 



mn /OVKKTBt TO MOKIH DAKOTA t3 

imd entered the village, where we found Fred 
AwaitiDgr our arrival and who had passed the night 
there. Casaelton is about twenty miles west of 
Fargo and in 1880 was a small village of 361 in- 
habitants, having been kept down by the large 
Icarms around the place. This was the last village 
passed thru on our journey. We did not stop 
there long and next sve journeyed north, at timet 
bearing west« About four miles out of Casselton 
we passed in sight of a large railroad force laying 
the rails on the roadbed of a branch line running 
corth which had been graded the previous year. 
Our objective point was now Grand Forks County. 

For twenty miles oa either side of the Northern 
Pacidc railroad each aiteroate section of land was 
a railroad land grant and much of the southern 
h&lt' of Cass County wag then absorbed by big 
^arra3, and there were others in its north half; con- 
sequently for twenty miles or more northward from 
Casselton we saw but few actual settlers. Even 
the road dwindled to a mere wagon trail and as this 
began to get but faintly n eiked cd the prairie 
Bod we struck a ''half breed trail" over which Red 
Riv^?r cart trains had moved in fur trading days. 
This we followed several miles to where it crossed 
Elm river, near where Blanchard in Traill County 
is located, but which wag an uninhabited section 
of that county, as we saw it. 

The next day, May 17th, we reached Goose river 
a little below where Mayville is now located. The 
course of Goose river had already been occupied 
by Norwegi&-^ settiers a« far up stream as any 



*84 rOKT\i: YK\&i IN >«)RrH 'DAKOTA 

Umber existed. Ihere wtis a store at the edge of 
the valley of the stream, the bottom land appear* 
ing to be about a hundred feet below. We wert 
told that there were bridg:ea over both forks of the 
xiver about three 'miles above where the valley 
was shallow and so we followed -a road aloDg the 
< south side of the vaKey to that poiDt. Here a 
road was reached that led from the upper Goose 
i-iver settlements northeast to Grand Forks. The 
Goost' river settlers were then living: in log houses* 
The next camp for a night was on the prairie 
somewhere i)ear the site of Hatton and during the 
day following we reached whatis now Waahington 
township in the southerh p»rt of Girand Forka 
County and went into camp on 'the oorth side of a 
streamlet called Coven creek, and beiide the road 
that has been mentioned. The praixte thereabout 
was roliingand uninhabited except bT a lone wo- 
man occupying a-cabin en -the couth £ide of the 
xreek and to the «a8t of the road, her husband 
4>eing away at work somewhere. Vt e arrived at 
this camping place May 20th ard did not leave it 
again until the forenoon of 'Monday, the 24th. In 
the meantime H. F. Arnold went to Grand Fbrkii 
to confer with Geo. B. WiDship ana to look over 
the county along what was then 'expected woi:^}^ 
be the course of the railroad "when it advanced 
west from Grard Forks. For about two yeara 
prior to June, 1879, kinship had ptafblisbed a week* 
ly paper in Caledonia, l/jinn., but at the datexr^ecr* 
tioned he suspended it end Ehippc<d his printing 
matenais to'^npind l<cika vAnxe 4)^ fouodect H^ 



SoraM, at first ai » weekly publication. While 
^w&y from c&mp* U. F. A.rnoId learned from « 
te&mster Bonaetliinsr concerninff a large pr&irid 
tract already called Elk. Valley and having gone to 
it and examined the land, he decided to locate 
there and at once returned to our camp. 

When we lei t Coven creek the Wright boy sep- 
i&rated from Ui»&ud took the road to Grand Forks, 
his trunk b^ing goclen to him later on some trip 
raade to that point. We traveled west and nortb 
into ivhat U now Avon township and next day w% 
]iad to lay over there on account of fog and driz* 
juiag r^ia. The d&y after, it cleared up and wft 
proceeded north to Turtle rtver. following a gravel 
ridge» for that section of the county was then 
.treeless &ad roadleus. The best of the land ia 
/\voa and Arvilla townships had been tiled upo& 
by proapective settlers the previous fall and as 
•vUey were allowed »six months thereafter in which 
to edtabiish n residence on their claims, they werd 
no\^ beginni&g to appear and put up claim shacks. 
One of these, Homer D. Smith, met with in Avon, 
was afterwards a lon^ time resident of Larimoree 
Another man, George Ame» by name, was builds 
in^ a Siii&li framed hotisa about three miles east 
of where Larimore WE8.y«t to be. In 1898 it was 
moved into town and remodeled and is the south* 
ern of the two dwellinga next west of the electric 
pfant. We cam® to Turtle river about where the 
buildings of the Crystal ^Springs farm are located. 
There were cattle feeding on the valley bottom^ 
nbout eighty ^eet below and the noise of cow Mii 



26 HJRTTf Y«AJR3<XTf NOKTH DAKOTA 

cameup fi-om the depths of the valley. There 
was a wafiron trail near the prairie edge of the tim- 
ber that had been^truck out by settlers along th€ 
stream ia going to and returning from Grand 
Fork8» A family named Leavitt vvas liviLg at 
what is now called Thomas* grove, who had emi- 
igrat^d from Mitchell County, Iowa, the previous 
year. Following the trail to this place, the cabin 
stoetag ofl the high ground at the edge of the timber, 
#^e turned south for a quarter mile and camped at 
^he prairie edge of a marshy basin which is less 
than two miles north of Larimore. 

H. F. Arnold cut some brush for certain guide 
marks in pulling in upon the unsurveved Elk 
Valley and along what would sometime become a 
section line road. A tall bush was set up on a 
iiection mound on the township line one mile north 
of where the railroad now runs at the Towner 
avenue crossing, and another bu6h was set at a 
mound and stake one half mile east of that. These 
two gave range marks to set other bushes at inter* 
vals where theri* were no mounds and maintain aa 
apprcxin ateiy correct east and ^est lite Icr Ecme 
three miles on what later was called the Stumjj^ 
Lake road, which crcsees the raihcad at the Dick- 
con place. The day we came in upon the prairie oit 
Slk Valley was May 27th, and several hours were 
spent looking over the land with a view of making 
a selection of claims. Toward evening we pullefi 
to the center of Section 10» Town 151 North, Rangj^ 
55 W est, later nskmed I^a;r4mor.e towo^ip. 



«Rr.\BusHiMa A 38rrLss«B:^T 

Before: going: into the details of establishinir 
and opeoingr a farm in a hitherto unoccupied 
township in the western part of Grand Forks Co., 
we shall give some attention to aspects and con* 
ditions as found existing in this section durinR the 
warm months of 1880, and for the sake of contrast 
With present times. 

A settlement of some fifty people had been made 
at Grand Forks in 1871, but those who came that 
year and others who came later had to waitdurinfir 
several years for immigration and development 
of the county back -from Red river, ideanwhile 
Ihose already here were mainly concerned with 
the developing river traffic, stage coach stations, 
the military posts, the vanishing fur trade and n 
Httle in the way of mercantile affairs. 

There were several causes why immigration into 
the Ked River Valley was retarded during most 
^f the decade of the seventies, altho railroads ha^ 
reached the valley at Breckenridge and Moorhead 
before the close of the year 1871. In the firsrt 
place, the people of the tr iadie n^cetein Etfctca 
knew litcleor nothing in regard to the real capa< 
bilities of the valley and most of what they sup- 
posed that they knew was of the nature of adverse 
reports concerning the country, to the effect that 
"it was a barren desert fit only for Indians ani 
Buffalo," ita winters bein^ e»me^ing tertibte. 



f8 roicry rsxRj M houth Dakota 

The middle seventies wa^ a period of financia! 
deprecflioo. reDdering people less disposed to emi* 
irrate than when times are normal; but as effective 
as anything in keeping emigrants out of the Red 
Hiver Valley during that interval was the news* 
paper reports in regard to the ravages of douda 
of Eocky Mountain iocasts in western Minnesota 
dujring two or thret! seasons. All oi these thiogt 
combined were enough to deter emigrants fron^ 
seeking homes in the Northwest. Toward the cloi« 
of the decade newspaper reports concerning yields 
df wheat on the big farms then being opened adja* 
cent to the Northern Pacific railroad attracted 
wide attention. Thereafter immigration into the 
valley began increasing each year until it reafihed 
a flood tide in the spring of 1882. We had arrived 
in the midst of this transition interval. 

The ranges of townships in this countjr next 
east of Range 55 had be^n subdivided and open to 
settlement as early as 187t^, but had not been filed 
Vpon except along Turtle river as late as the early 
fall of 1879. In October of that year, a railroad 
force having finished grading from Fisher to Eaait 
Grand Forks, crossed the river with their out|^$ 
and graded a roadbed west for ten miles out fron^ 
the village. It seems to have been this fact that 
induced the persons already mentioned to put io 
their filings on the best claims they could find ii( 
Avon, Arvilla and Hegton townships. Beyond the 
west line of these townships the land had not been 
subdivided, though two rangen of tc^ n^hips had 
been laid out by placing EROunds j^nd tt^es em^ 



iSSYABLianamo a iisrrbisMiiKT 29 

i^alf mile all around their borders. While lettleri 
seem to have avoided the open prairie lands tha^ 
were neither surveyeaticr la market, the case stood 
differently with them in respect to the partially 
tifnbered quarter sections along the streams. All 
Along Turtle river and its Bouth branch, settlers 
had filed on the land f>o far as it contained timber 
in 1878 and '79 and were living in log cabins. At 
Bachelors Grove, a body of between three and four 
(idQdred acres of timber in the unsurveyed ranges, 
there were in 1880 eight or ten men holding claima 
aa sQuatters, some of whom had been living thera 
tor two years. 

The Elk Valley tract ia a long prairie mainly 
level and extending along the base of the hills or 
uplands from the vicinity of McCanna to Mayvilltt 
end Portland. This tract is keystone-shaped and 
varies from four to twelve miles wide, narrowing 
toward the fiorth and widening toward the south, 
for a distance of at least thirty-five miles. It is a 
deposit of lake sediments, mainly sand, laid dowi^ 
in the ancient Lake Agaasiz. Along ite axis, as at 
Larimore and Northwood. these sediments whicl| 
rest upon the bowlder clay, are about sixty feet in 
depth, the lower thirty or forty feet being a quick* 
sand abundantly filled with pure water, the sand, 
clay ana boil above forming a natural filter. Th9 
eastern side of this tract is slightly rolling and t(h 
ward its western side near the uplands there wer^ 
sloughs and lakelets, now more or less drained. 

As stated, we found Larimore township devoid 
of occupants, and untouQbeil by the plov. Tbt 



I© rORTY YKAftJ tH KORtS DAKOTA 

i&nd within the limits of th« township wai entire!/ 
treeiesa, no timber beia^ visible iny nearer ouJ 
iocation than Thomaa' grove, then called Leavitti 
Ifrove. The natural prairie prrass on the flat land 
did not grow many inches high, but on the slope 
of the uplanda it grew higher and in summer could 
be seen waving owing to the gentle breezes uauaU 
ly prevalent. Late in July and in August its shade 
i>f green began changing to a lighter color owinff 
to maturing. The Elk Valley (more of a geo* 
graphical designation than any actual valley) had. 
in eai iier times, been a notable range for buffalo 
and doubtless had ot'ten been visited by halfbreed 
?ernbi:ia buffalo hunters- The bones of these an- 
imald lay scattered all over the flat land and to a 
iese extent over the hill country. Those of single 
animals covered small areas four or five rods in 
diameter, as dragge*i a:?ide by foxes and coyotes, 
and were generally observable in that way. The 
motJt prominent objects were the whitened ikuUs, 
the horns usually gone, their pointed corea pro* 
trading outward at an oblique angle four or five 
tnchei. Some twelve years had passed since the 
la3L of the buffalo had been hunted here; the bonea 
were bleached from long weathering and those 
that had lain on the ground longest were partially 
decayed. In the late seventies the Elk Valley was 
occ-ssionally visited by hunting parties from Grand 
Forks, out after any chance elk, deer or antelope 
that might still be found in this region. 

In coming in upon the flat grassy plain we halt* 
^d first in the northeast cornier pf Section 10 aa^ 



i^ear & small shallow depression then containing 
water, but toward evening: we moved to the center 
of the section. The next day, May 28, the wagoofl 
were unloaded and a temporary abode fixed up to 
use during warm weather. A patch was plowed 
for a garden and the turf was used to make walls 
about three feet hig-h and over all the bows and 
canvas of the wag-ona was stretched. The bodies 
of the wagons were taken inside for bunks and such 
other thingfs as would be injured if exposed to a 
i^hower of raih. 

It was desirable to know where the corners of 
Ihe quarter aectioas we had selected were located 
before doing: any breaking. A wad of binder wire 
had been brought along from near Casselton and 
a small rope one hundred feet in length was braid- 
ed from the wire. H. F. Arnold made a right an- 
gled triangle from long slats that had been used 
to strengthen the wagon bows and provided it with 
sights. Taking this to mound stakes on the town- 
ship line U mile north of our location, north and 
south lines were ranged and marked and with the 
east and west line of set bushes that has been men- 
tioned aid sn\2 maaaufing of half mile stretches, 
corners were approximately ascertained. On the 
first of June we began breaking the prairie sod, 
running three plows. 

The previous spring appears to have been unus* 
ually wet and this included a snow storm out of 
season. When we arrived in the country, it waa 
noticable that all shallow depressions were filled 
with water. Over about a half mile west and 



92 lA>i«Tt VSARd Vi WOKTH DAKOTA 

southwest from our location there was then Al 
•hallow lakelet, tenor fifteen rods wide and nearly 
a half mile io length. This was of use in waterintp 
tl^e Btock. The grass vrks now grown so that they 
tould feed but when working they were ffivea 
some ground feed. Along near the east aide of 
the lakelet mentioned there ran a wagon trail ot 
ftuch recent origin that it was merely rutted oa 
the prairie sod. It was occasionally used by per- 
•one traveling in canvas covered wagons from the 
Goose river settlements to those on th« upper 
<«aches of Forest and Park rivers. 

On Sundays i was accustomed to stroll arouid 
on the prairie, making ol;>6erva8ionB. On what ia 
now the Gailbraith place I came upoa a long and 
extensive depression about ten feet deep and sepa* 
sated from the low land north of town by a swell of 
the surface. Part of the bottom was sheeted over 
with water but the soulhern end was merely moist 
j^round. On this area the ground was thickly 
covered with broken buffalo bones, fragmenia of 
Red River carta, lodge poles and others used for 
frames in smoking pemmican. The wood waa 
partially decayed for it had lain in this hollow 
since the middle sixties. This had been a eamp of 
the Pembina halfbreeds, who were accustomed 
each summer to take to the plains, with their carta 
accompanied by their wives and children and a 
priest, to be gone several weeks. The slaughtered 
animals were cut up and brought to camp by the 
carts, the larger bones being broken to get the 
iparrow for the pemmican. the making of which 



vm mainly done by the women. Of many animals 
ilain of some they took oaly choice parts, leavinfr 
the bulk of the carcasses to the foxes and coyotes. 
From this old camp site we obtained a wagon load 
or two of wood, among it several oak axles of carts 
^Cseful in other ways than fuel. 

Soon after this we dug a well, the water beiag 
reached within twelve feet from the surface. A 
headless barrel was placed in the bottom an4 
pieces cf boards and material brought from the 
old camp site was used to curb it up. Along at 
drst the water was drawn up with a pail but in the 
fall a small iron hand pump was got so that the 
«tock could be watered directly from the well. 

We mailed letters and received mail at H. B. 
Hanson's place on Turtle river some seven miles 
Co the northeast of our location. A mail route 
had been opened from Grand Forks to Fort Totteil 
with three intervening postofiices on thf ^oute ii| 
the log cabins of settlers. Two were 0.9 Turtle 
river and the third at Stump lake. From Blake* 
ley's in Mekinock the route lay north of the river, 
but crossed the stream again at a ford near Hanson's 
and thence bore west by south across Elm Grove 
and Niagara townships, cutting across the north* 
west corner of Moraine township. W. N. Roach 
had the mail contract and started on his first trip 
October 12, 1879, accompanied by Jas. H. Mathews 
ard had a wagon trail to follow as f ar as Bachelor^ 
grove. Mathews called it by that oeme fceceue€ 
so many of the F^uatt^ra found there were single 
men. At first it M h^ep eaJled Thomsons gro?««. 



U rt>itTi VlSi^ft^ l?r NdKtH &AKOTA 

Hanaon came from SMit County, Minn., in June, 
1879, and the poatoffice in h\9 !ofr house was called 
Hegton before the township was given the same 
name. Since the postoffice had to have a name when 
the application for it was sent to Washington, he 
took the first ay!Ub!e of the name of the locality in. 
Norway whence he had originally came, and added 
to that the common Enj^lish affix **ton'* and thu» 
made out a name, which was better than repeating 
ftny name from over in Minnesota. Only one round 
trip per week was made with the mail and the route 
came to be called the Fort Totten trail. 

One morning a lone elk was seen leiaurtly stalk- 
iaa: across the prairie abouc a half mile north of 
dur habitation aad heading eastward. H. F. Ar* 
Siold Drought oat a Winchester ritie and fired & 
lew shots in the direction of th< elk, but the dis« 
\hnc& ^'us too far. The animal at first looked in 
our direction without stopping and then struck 
into a trot until out of si^ht. 

The ponds filling: depressions bred innumerable 
mosquitoes and on still evenings we had to smudge 
the cattle. One night in the midst of a heavy 
wind and thunder storin the oxen broke from their 
tetherings and made olT in the direction that the 
storm urged them. H. F. Arnold started out next 
day in search of them and the second day found 
them at a distance of nine or ten miles southeast 
from our location and brought them home. 

While breaking, small flocks of blackbirds came 
and followed along the newly turned furrows for 
worms and ant's eggs. Ihe iodividoal birds of a 



RS1PASLf9HVMQ A BKl^LEMEKT 35 

flock aeemed to belong to four varieties, for while 
gome were quite black others were light black* 
then §ome were marked with yellow and red, but 
all were mixed together. They, were remarkably 
tame, for whenever I stopped the team they would 
approach to within a few feet of where I stood. 
I did not disturb them, as I wished to ascertain 
how tame they might be in a region where they 
had not been shot at. At times they would hop 
upon the upturned furrow making the air voca! 
vith their peculiar sonj?. There were some prairie 
chickens in the coaatry, but as these birds follow- 
ed up th3 cultivation of wheat and corn they were 
aot namjroas, A. fev daeks ware seen frequent* 
fng the sloughs and ponds in the depressions, 
while wild geese were birds of passage, as nowo 
The English sparrow whe absent, not then havinflT 
intruded into the country. 

We had not long bec-n settled in our temporary 
abode when we began to receive occasional callerSo 
Probably the first was a young man who drove up 
in a two horse farm wagon, but did not remain 
long. He said that he was looking over the coun* 
try for a locRtion, and had passed the preceding 
winter in the Territory. Asked as to the character 
of the winter, he said that it had been a severe 
one, the snow deep and that it had been much blown 
about by the winds. He thought that a succession 
of such winters would result iii driviog many peo- 
ple then here out of the country. 

Another day, late in the afternoon, a man who 
appeared to be about thirty years of age^ arrived 



from aeroii tht hitl country. He carried a blan* 
ket and a few campiaK uteosils ic a ba^ suspended 
from hi'i shouldera by atraps. He aUted that be 
bad traveled from Vailey Uity, moat of the way 
across aa uniahabited stretch of country, and was 
making: for Smugglers Point, cow Neche. He 
remained with as until the ntxX moraing aad then 
reiumed bia journey. 

In Jua3 the U. S. census waa taken and Paul 
Johnson, of North wood township, was assigned 
the western part of the county, so far as he could 
Jdnd any inihabitants in it. He found only three 
in Larimore township, then unnamed. In what is 
ftow Niagara township there were more, all timber- 
settlers, located in the west end of Bachelors grove 
and two small grovea in coulees or ravines io tht 
eastern slope of the uplands. Johnson stated that 
he had then been located five yean oo Goose river* 
The course of this stream^ being farther south, 
had been eceupied several years earlier than the 
upper reaches of Turtle river. By the year 1630 
every quarter section in Grand Forks County oa 
which there was any timber, had its claimant. 

The wagon trail over west of our location was 
traveled by canvas covored wagons, usually draw» 
by oxen. Two or three of these teams going ent 
way or the other, were observed each week. Tba 
township then being entirely treeless, they wer« 
apt to remain in sight between one and two hours. 
On rare occasions aome of these travelers called at 
our abode to make Inquiries about the country* 
jDnce that auamer tw^ gf these teams travdiog la 



eompatiy camped on the trail by the lakelet for 
two days and then journeyed southward. We 
learned later that theee campers settled in Traill 
County. It seemed singular that such a fine body 
of land as the Elk Valley tract presented should 
not have been appropriated by squatters, but there 
was then no difficulty in regard to obtaining land, 
and people seemed ta prefer to select locations in 
aurveyed areas. There were then people at Grand 
Forks who were watting for the survey of the £lk 
Valley, understood to be done that year. 

During the latter part of June, Fred Wright 
came out from Grand Forks on ^ Saturday to pa/ 
us a short visit- On going to Grand Forks in th^ 
latter part of May he had worked at odd jobs and 
then Winship, who had known something of hini 
\n Caledonia, Minn-, took him into the Herald 
oiffice. Soon after dinner time, Sunday, I noticed 
that the oxen, turned out to gra?e, had got on the 
trail and were moving northward with the cow ia 
the lead, E. G. Arnold and myself started ont 
after therr*. the animals havirg thrf e quarters of 
a m:i2 the start and were moving as fast as they 
could walk. We had an arduous chase after them 
but they stopped at Elm grove ^\iere we turned 
them back again. The grave popBisted of three or 
four acre's of tall timbey n|th a^ log cabin in it and 
was located near where tho Elra Grove church now 
stands. A short time before we reached the grov« 
and turned back the cattle, we had met on the 
trail a lone rridale aged Norwegian woman who 
was cooposed/y knitting^iWJ fiJbe leisurely trudged 



99 Tfy^SfTt YKAiti m HC^RlHi DAKOTA 

9\ong the trmili. Oa returainj: we overtook her. 
She could talk English quite well and was sociable 
and camtnunicative. She stated that she lived in 
the Park river countrr and was on her way to Goose 
river where she had land interests. Asked if she 
was not afraid to travel in such a lone way, she saidi 
that she was not, because there were no bad peo* 
pie in the country. When we arrived where we 
turned off the trail, the woman was invited to oar 
camp to rest a while and get some refreshment 
She accepted the invitation, remained about an 
hour and then proceeded on her way. While we 
had been f^one, young Wright had started back to 
Grand Forks, then a growing village. 

Once a week some one of us went on foot acrosf 
the unsettled country to Hanson's fcr our mail. 
We could easily crross the south branch at a point 
on what is now the Marien farm where the creek 
was then narrow enough between sodded banks to 
be lightly leaped over. The stream had once flow- 
ed on the opposite or south side of the valley. 
At the point of crossing the north side of the val* 
ley rose steep and sandy about twenty feet high. 
This made a land mark to locate from a distance 
the point of crossing. North of the valley some 
distance a depression a mile long, forty or fifty 
rods wide and about ten feet deep with a flat 
bottom, was met; with. The route lay along the 
east side of this basin and just beyond its northerq 
end one came upon the Fort Totten trail, withiq 
about two miles of Hanson^s place, whoae loeatios 
was tn Section 19, Hegto& township. 



One Sunday in makiDfr t ramble I directed m^ 
course west by south for 3i mile* or more. Thia 
brought me to the Moraine township line mlreadj 
marked north and south and all around it by aline 
9f mounds and stakes, one half mile apart The 
township was not inhabited and remained so. for 
the most part, thru the next year. Along the slope 
e( tbe bills and enough above their base to avoid 
the wet and sloughy land below, ran an old disused 
faalf breed trail, the aamc we had followed some 
miles to Elm river. It was still well defined oq 
the surface, though gr^8> grown, and had been 
Kittson's cart trail from Pembina and St. Joseph 
^WalhaUa) to St. Paul, in 184^ Major Woods and 
Capt. Pope traveled over it oo their expedition 
from Fort Snelling to Pembina. 

The white man's wagon trail ttruek out on the 
prairie turf by the common farm wagon, and only 
traveled occasionally, conaisted el two rutted 
paths, worn by the wheels and hocfa of the horees 
and oxen drawing tht^m. A strip of grass a foot 
to flixteeo Jnches wide remained in the center, but 
If the trails became much traveled this was grad* 
ually worn away and they became more like beateo 
roads until relegated to the section lines by the 
breaking and cultivnticn of the land- Now the 
half breed or fur trader's cart trails were of a dif- 
ferent order. They consisted of three parallel 
paths, the two outward ones worn by the large 
wheels of the carts with rims 4 or 5 inches thick, 
and the cecter pat^ by tfee animals used, ponie« 
and oxen» harnessed single bdtwjeen the phills. 



4i potert rsu^i ut pwnn Dakota 

At»mr the bttt of the bill country there was 
«Ofnethtfi|r else marked eaottgh to attract sooaa 
^ people*! attentloA. ThU was a ridge line, not 
entirely eootlotiottf in solaces, from about five to 
ilf teen rods in width, and uauaUy seven or eight 
feet high. The narrow form makes a fine rounded 
f idge, white the wider form is more like a low 
tweU of the surface. Between the ridge and tht 
toot of the lowest slope of the hills there is apt ta 
occur a concave hollow, but on the east or valley 
lide the ground dtps gently inward across a aooe 
of bowlder clay under the gravelly top soil. Th* 
fidge itself along the foot of the hills is composed 
;^f sand, gravel and pebbles, derived from northern 
archf»an and white limestone rocks. These matt- 
rials were thrown up during storms b.v tb« wavea 
9f the glacial lake Agassis, swept shoreward by the 
scouring of the top of the bowlder clay from about 
a mile inward from the beach line which marka 
the highest stage of the ancient laka« 

To the northwest abcut fiveifiiles from our ctmp 
the tops of trees were in view risirg from a coulet 
or ravine. This locality was called Whisky creek 
Altho only a small streamlet ran down the coulat* 
That this locality was inhabited could be inferred 
from the fact that during still evenings in Junt 
the smoke of a smudge fire was observed rising 
from a grove near the head of the coulee, presum* 
ably at the Hitstad place. Elm grove, ne foage? 
in existence, atood a »hort distance east of the 
lower end of this coulee* 



Wm ftnishfed breaking for that season about the 
feOthaf July. Accord injr to measurements made, 
the prairie aod turned over amounted to as much 
us I6ii acres, doce on three quarter sections. As 
the season for backsetting was not yet at hand, 
a, F. Arnold and hia father fitted up the tw* 
wagons and taking four yoke of oxen they left for 
Grand Forks to be gene & week or more, and 
<;j(uring their absence i remained alone io the town* 
;$hip, its sole inhabitant, there being do other 
persons nearer than the vicinitv of Thomas* grove. 
A EenjamJD family had come from Grand Fork* 
U>at summer and built a cabin on the edge of the 
basin on the present Peatman place and about a 
quarter of a mile south of where the Leavitt fam* 
ily was living at the grove. I do net recall thai 
any one came to the camp except a young Norwe* 
gian who came over from the trail in a wagoi| 
without the usual c&uvas covering. He said that 
he was born in Spring Grove township, Houston 
Co., Minn., and was looking over the country; h% 
seemed to be in a hurry and soon drove back to tht 
trail. When seen the canvas covered wagons made 
CDRspieous objects on the level, treeless plaint. 
As stated, they were usually drawn by oxen and 
their owners fitted them with bows and canvts 
coverings to camp and sleep in nights, since theil 
Journeys lay thru much uninhabited country. 

Left to myself end meiely Icckirg after the 
camp for the time being, 1 had some opportunity for 
ohsenHnc weather conditions and certain aspects 
pt land and sky. The weather was ideal eoongb 



ftt that season, thedaya like perpetual sunihine, dry 
&tid warm without betag decidedly aultry. To one 
if'ho had lived in Rhode island and Connecticut ia 
Hbout the same latitude as Dcs Moines. Iowa, and 
in southeastern Minnesota, aspects of nature here 
were somewhat different. The summer days are 
longer; the lay of the (and is somewhat different 
and its veg:et&tian iiot whoHy the same. At the 
Sast the gopher i& not known, but in Houston 
County the small spotted variety and the burrow- 
ing: pocket gopher were present, as here, but twa 
*ther species were also to be found here, the com- 
Bion yellow ones and the rather rare gray kind 
called ground squirrels. Even the heavens pre- 
sented some noticeable difference; here cne has ta 
iook 6iJ degrees higher toward the zenith for the 
pole star than in central Iowa, while the bright 
star Vega which sets in the northwest in the lat« 
jtude of southern Mifcretcta, here swings just 
clear of the northern horizon, always within what 
is called the circle of perpetual apparition. 

When the teams returned from Grand Fork* 
some lumber was brought. We now built of ship- 
lap a cabin twelve feet square with a shed roof. 
Four bunks to sleep in were provided on the north 
side beneath where the roof was lowest. These 
were arranged so as to have two lower and two 
upper ores. No tarred peper wes prcvided at 
first, one of the wagon canvacees being battened 
on to the roof instead , erd ctr lekrgings mere 
moved into it from the camp close by. 



o 



III 

SUBDIVISION OF THE TOWNSHIP 

N the 5th of August E. C. and H. F. Arnold 
again departed for Grand Forks, taking th^ 
iame number of teams as before. One of the 
wagons had its bows and canvas covering replaced 
tor camping purposes while away, besides, Grand 
Forks, over thirty miles distant by trails or roads, 
«ould not be reached with ox teams the first day. 
While down previously an engagement was made 
with McKelvey to do some backsetting for him on 
land across Red river from Grand Forks. There 
was no East Grand Porks on the Minnesota side of 
Red river at that time. It was intended thin time 
to be gone about a month and I was left with the 
pair of oxen that worked in harncsees to do some 
of the backsetting. This was turning back the 
dried and partially rotted turf of the breaking 
season with the addition of an inch of the subsoil 
from the bottom of each furrow. I think all of 
the pjowp. were run for a short time before the 
second move to Grand Forks was made. 

The railroad track was laid across Red river and 
into Grand Forks as soon as a bridge could be 
finished which was early in January, 1880. Trains 
began running into Grand Forks from Crookston, 
but in a few days a blowing snow storm blocked 
the line and it was not cleared again until March. 
What waK merely a village at the time the railroad 
arrived, now fceganto luild cp rspidly duriLg th» 



fo!low2fif wtrir seEeona. The census irave Grand 
Forks 1,705 inhab4tanWi that year. In July the 
ten milea stretch cf roadbed* graded in the fall of 
1879, was ironed and a small village was atartedi 
At the en^ of the track, at first called StickQey» 
^ut the next year th<> railroad maa^gemeiit chaagt 
«d this nanne to O^ata. On the occasion ol their 
l&rst trip to Grand Porici. £^ a and ^.. F. Araold 
taw a loeomotivf there and as this was bieaded %th 
mud th> Slk Valley, it was aa eaeouragiag sight* 

Id June of that year« Gea, G, Beardsley, wh(k 
was a contractor fct goveroirent surveys, left 
fargo with two weli-equipi>ed parties for siinrey* 
Ing work. One of ^heae parties weal t^ Sheyeao« 
f47er, and probably w^^rked ic Barnea County. 
the other party came to this coui^ty to sobdivtd^ 
iato sections and ({uarter*s«ctiocs the lasd lying in 
raniiTes 65 and 56, The Utter range now borderi 
on Nelson County, but there was bo Kelson County 
existent in the territory in IbSQ and Grand Ferl^i 
County at that time extended three ranges far thcf 
west, and also included the south half <yf WaltH 
County. 

The p^rtv that worked in this cotinty eom|>riae4 
fitjht or nine m«n in charjfe of a young man d| 
the name of James E. Dyke who^ home waa im 
Pembina County, They were well provided witll 
tent9, ox teams and provisions and also had a peay 
and cart and a saddle horse. They tottmeBeed 
work in the southwestern part of the county aa 
now bounded, working northward, eubdividing t 
township in one range, th«x^ U the other amd to oa 



«lier&ately. Dnrinff the first w<*ek in August the 
p&Tiy wer4 ix^ Moraine townahtp. or wh^t to thern 
was "TawR 15i North, Rangre 66 West." and no* 
thing more, except that they did not consider it 
ft tract of country so apt to invite settlers as the 
Hat valley land below. Belore moving camp to ga 
into the the next township to be subdivided, a maa 
was fent out to select a aite and who also took 
aote of any obstaeics to the teama on the way that 
led to it. It was their aim to pitch the eamp as 
near to the center of a township as would be near 
Abater. On Sunday, August 8th, the surveying 
party moved their camp into Larimore township 
and located it for a week at the southwest corner 
of Section 13 and on the east side of a slough. 

The laying out of townships in p^rts of ranges, 
or in blocks in some county, was done one, two or 
three years prior to their subdivision. 3oth of 
these forms of surveying work involved separata 
contracts by different parties. It was the aim of 
the General Land Office to keep pace with tha 
factual needs of settlement. The surveying party 
evidently worked according to some arranged 
system that would economize time. Their aim 
was to complete the Fubdivision of a township 
within a week, unless delayed by bad weather, la 
running lines across the township the process waa 
as here described: Dyke carried his three-legged 
surveying instrument theodolite) by a strap that 
passed over one shoulder and adjusted it on tha 
grouud for siajhtiog every fifteen or twenty rods, 
A poleman held the pole in position when 19 Una 



»Qtil afiother maa had cut with a sp&de a pointed 
piece of turf about Bzven inches wide and a foot 
and a half loQg:^ braced upright with another pieee 
of sod and set it close to the pole. The polemaa 
and his assistant then went forward another 
etretch while the surveyor lugired his instrument 
forward from his last position and set it for sight* 
f ng agaiFi do that it£ piumoiet was suspended just 
over the point of the upright paece of turf. In 
the meantione two chainrnen were measurinfl: o£F 
the ground and I think tkev preceded the man 
<that held the pole. 

A pooy and light c^rt accompanied the party 
to carry the mound stakes used to mark corners. 
Each half mile measured off constituted a brief 
haltia^ place. A stake, which had to be the right 
one for any special corner if it was for a section 
corner, was taken from the cart and its pointed 
end driven a few inches into the ground by being; 
thumped with the back of a spade. It was set 
juat where measuring and aligning indicated that 
it should he placed. A last act was to place a 
pieee oi turf on the top of the stake the better 
to mark its position to the mound men whent 
ever they could get around to the line then beingf • 
run. The party then continued to work forward. 

The surveying was done only on section lines, 
since there was no occasion to run quarter-seetio^ 
lines, for the centers of sections where the corneirai 
of four quarters converged were not marked by 
stakes and mounds. Settlers were left to fin^ 
their own corners at such points by ranging acrosa 



the section from the quarter stakes on theseetipa 
linies. in this state section lines are legal roada 
and where bo uied the t(»ndency w&$ to oblil^raitf . 
^^ stakes and mo\indi\' 

The stakes or postB at section corners which ai;t 
the cornere of a square miieo^ land, w^re abo^t 
Ihrse inches square and three feet in lea«:th. The 
ioxiT sides near their tops were inscribed with, 
vetters and fij^ures indicating town, range and the 
jiumber of the section that any of the four sidei 
faced, the posts being: set cornerwise to the direc- 
tion that the lines ran. The quarter-sectipn stakes 
iieasared about two by three inches and were set 
%t the half mile points between the section posts. 
These were merely marked }iS. The stakes or 
yoats were finally mounded by two of the mea 
who attended to that part of the work, pyramidi- 
c&l mounds of turf and ez^rth being built around 
thefii. These mounds were about four feet square 
&t the base and 2} feet high, the posts projecting 
about eight inches above their apex. Ii^ the casc^ 
cf quarter-section mourdB, the earth acd turf 
yemoved on two sides of a mound left depression^ 
eight inches deep and in elongated diamond form. 
The direction that these pointed indicated whether 
they were on north and south or on east and wejs^ 
section lines. Any one driving oyer aa uaeettlec) 
township with a printed plat in hand, by eoBiuU* 
ing the markings on a section post could indicate^ 
on the plat the point in the township where he 
stood. This practice was oft^n resorted to bif 
parties out looking up claims, 



The stakes used by the surveying party ^^ere 
cut where tbey could liad oak timber and were 
marked in camp with cutting: instruments, usually 
on the evening: before the cJay they were to be 
\i3ed. The party did not work later than five o'clock 
in the afternoon. One mornine: Dyke and some of 
his men stopped Afew minutes at the cabin while 
on their way to work, and marked with a blue 
pencil on a township plat the three quarter-sections 
00 which breaking had been done and also took 
4lown the names of claimants. This was to indi* 
cate that these quarters were squatter's claims. 
Dyke stated that the Elk Valley was the best look* 
in^ tract of country he had seen since takini; the 
aeld that season, and expressed some surprise 
Ifhat it had not been generally occupied by squat- 
ters in advance of the survey. 

Oaring the early part of the week in which th« 
towsnhip was being subdivided, I made a visit one 
moruing to the surveyor's camp, which wat 1| 
mile south by west from the cabin. The men 
were afield, but the cook and a camp helper were 
present. They had two large tents, two yoke of 
62en and wagons there. The camp helper showed 
me a stake several rods out in the slough and said 
that it marked the center of the township. I told 
the cook that there was a cow kept about th« 
cabin, that I h^d mo^e milk there than I could us6 
before it spoiled and that they would be welcome 
to it free of charge by sending some one to get it^ 
The cook stated that milk had been a scarceartiele 
iik their camp and that he ir^ali be gUi i9 avad 



himself of such an opportunity, and for i«T«ral 
morr^ia^s thereafter the camp helper came and 
got & supply. Just before the camp moved per- 
mission was asked to store in the cabin a wagoQ 
load of their goods until they could come and haul 
them to the neict camping place. Presumably 
they did not want to le^ve them any length of 
^ime near a wa? pn trail and as the next move wai 
to be up the slope of the hills into Niagara town- 
ship, they preferred not t^ load their wagons toa 
heavily. The goods were contained in unopened 
barrels, boxes and bags and large cans. On th« 
it^fternoon of Sunday, August 15th, I saw the 
teai:53 of the surveyor's camp filing diagonally up 
the slope of the hills and evidently making for 
iha Whiaky creek ravine. In about a week the 
cook &nd hi3 helper came with an ox team for the 
goods and on departing he tore open a sack of 
tinground coffee and left with me several pounda 
of this desirable commodity. 

Amidst the backsetting work I would take an 
5il:'teraoon off to cross the country to Hanson'* 
after any mail that came to us. I sometimes saw 
Roach there on his return trip from Fort Totten. 
He drove a light team with a span of good road^ 
sters. He did not take the road himself every 
trip but occasionally sent a man in his place. One« 
or twice that fall I saw the Indian caravan of forty 
fifty ox teams camped oijv the prairie by the For| 
Totten trail, and on their way from the fort and 
reservation to Qrand Forks after the tons of gov- 
ernmeBt auppliei then delivered there. Each team 



BO ffi^tCtt tm^S» W NOHTH DAKOTA 

had its Indian driver, but the caravan was in 
charge of a white man, agrent or wagon-master, 
who used a horse and buggy, Cooical tents or 
tepees were taken along for camping purposes a^ 
night. Smaller parties of the red n^en also used 
the Fort Totten trail in passing back and forth 
between the Fort Totten and Red Lake Indian 
reservations. Among the^e, ling*rrirg specimens 
of the old Red River cart of fur trading timet 
were still to be seen, and once i saw one in poa« 
aession of a white man who resided at Stump lake. 
They resembled the two. wheeled tip cart of thd 
whites, but not a particle of iron was used in their 
sanstructioQ. Once or twice I saw Beardsley, tht 
»ttrveying contractor, at the postoflice that fall. 

One morning Dyke and two other men vf\i^ 
were recent comers from Ohio, drove up to the 
eabin in a light horse team, while on their way to 
get upon the wagon trail. One was a brother ot 
Major Beardsley, as he was called, and the other a 
man named Gates. They located prairie claims in 
the vicinity of Bachelors Grove and probably went 
back to Ohio for the winter when that eeason 
approached. 

During the last two weeKs that I remained alonn 
in the township, the cow took a notion one morn* 
ing to run away. In trying to overtake her the 
cow her&elt ran and disappeared into the wooded 
Turtle valley near the Leavitt place. Later alon^ 
I learned at Hanson's that she was to be found ^% 
Thos. Christiansop's place en the stream stcvn 
Sanson's (C^nstlltQspn Q^^we here in 1879 and !• 



^till Uvi&g where he located.) As it would require 
9^ tetber-Fope to get the cow home is so much opea 
country, i made a special trip after her and lead 
her back to the cabiq. 

The next day, which was September Zd, £. C. 
and H. P. Arnold came b|;ck with the teams and 
with them came i^rs- Arnold and two d&Qjrhtera, 
During a part of the time since we had left the 
home community in Minnesota, the women folka 
were in Rhode Island visiting: relatives and came 
from there directly to Gr^ed Forks, the small 
f^rm all of the family had new left having been 
rented* ^hey arrived at Grand Forks shortly b«» 
Ifore the backsetting job was ^nished. There w^ 
brought back on this return trip irtcre lcii.ter,aii 
Oliver riding plow and a couple of large boxes of 
household goods that had i^een sent to Grand 
l^^crks. The lumber was used at once to enlarge 
the cabin so that it measured 20 by 12 feet- TheA 
or later in the fall it was covered over outside 
with tarred paper. 

Daring a good part of September af^4 October 
we attendipd to backsetting. H. F. Arnold got 
the loan of a mowing-machine and a large amount 
of prairie hay was cut early in the fall, using on 
the mower the oxen that worked in harnessea. 
We also did that fall some backsetting for persont 
owning land in Arvilla atd Hegtcn townships, 
probably getting fallen or dead wood on Turtle 
river for this outride work. Below the junction 
of the two branches of the river, therf were seU 
tied several fafniUes ?i^bo bad emigrated to these 



$d ifMtcrf TKAittS W tiOUXA &AKOTA 

perts in 1878 from Kandiyohi County, Minn., and 
ail of them were dweiiiog in lo(r cabics« ai was 
customary with pioneer settlers who located on 
the timbered Btreams. They stated that they found 
the land in Rang:e 54 already in market when they 
arrived. One of these settlers nanried Henry 
Mornran lived at what was later known as the 
Terpenaingr farm. On its north eide there is quite 
an embay men t in the valley devoid of timber and 
on this open tract Morgan had planted potatoes 
^nd turnips. As he was building a new log house 
and the last week of October had come, we got the 
job of plowing and harrowing out the potatoes, 
palling and catting the tops off the turnips and 
getting them stored in a cellar. The job lasted 
several days, there being more than an acre to the 
field, and for the work we got our winter's supply 
of potatoes and turnips and some loads of wood. 
Some of the potatoes, exceptional of course, meas- 
ured five inches in length by two thru the middle. 
There was a good deal of dead wood in the Tur« 
tie valley at that time* including the charred and 
blackened trunks of standing trees partially burn- 
ed away where prairie fires ^ad entered the valley. 
On the Morgan place a swirling eddy in times of 
spring fioods had deposited a mass of floatage stuff 
and drift wood over a considerable area of ground. 
It was from this locality that we later hauled what 
wood we obtained on the Morgsn place. Some 
crotches and poles were also obtained from Turtle 
river with which to build a winter shelter for the 
^ow and oxen, similar to the straw barns oi early 



4ay8 fa Mimnegota, but in this instance it was coV' 
ftad in with coarse hay nauch of which was cut 
vsrith a scythe. A cellar hole had to be dug under 
the cabin for the potatoes ard turnips. 

One Sunday that fall Dyke and two other mtVk 
drove down from the north and stopped at the 
cabin for dinner. This gave me the opportunity 
to make some inctuiries coneerning: their surveying 
work. Dyke stated that the ^methods they used 
4id not insure exactitude in regard to marking 
corners. These pp^ight vary from being correctj 
lis he exprsise'^ it» "by a few links of the chain." 
The corners wt had marked approximated sa 
cloudy to what they had later made them, t^at 
the surveying party thought that we had used 
a surveyor's compass and chain. As all adult per- 
Hons then ir; the territory were supposedly born 
outside of it, I asked Dyke from what state he 
had came and he stated that he was from near the 
Kennebec river in Maine. 

During September and October persons were 
to be seen occasionally driving over the countrj 
in light horse rigs, looking at the land. Amonc 
these was Oscar M. Towner who came as a sort ef 
advance agent of the later formed Klk Valley 
Farming company. On Sunday afternoon, Sept. 
I'Eth, as I was taking a stroll, I saw two teams al 
a distance unload lumber in the center of Section 
13, this bein^ the first risible act of starting the 
subsequent big farm. Only two claim shacks 
were put up there that fall. Other parties also 
began tean:>iDg in iymber and building ehacka 



«St ifOmrf YEARS Ui iHiMTH I^aHOTA 

vrithoal floors, merely to indicate until the land 
aame into market, that the qiiarters the shacks 
iitood ap^n, had been "taken." borne plowing wa» 
lone around them as a protection against chance 
prairie fires and then they ¥.eie left until the foJ- 
iowing spring, none cf these parties atiemptisi^ 
lo pass the winter on their claims. 

The greund froze up that year about November 
dth, leaving about thirty acres oi the backsetticg 
unaccomplished, and that could easily have been 
«ione but for so much outside work. H. F. Ar^ 
Siold made two or three more trips to Grand Forks 
md Ojata for lumber and supplies. Later in the 
season he got a position in the office of clerk of 
court in Grand Forks and spent the winter ther«t 
It was during the early part of winter that £. C* 
Arnold and myself hauled the supply of fuel from 
Turtle river and its south branch. At tinr^es itt 
November and December I worked on a cabin o^ 
16 by 12 feet ou my own claim, in which to pasar 
the winter. It had not been wholly completed 
either outside or inside when on Sunday afternooii« 
December 12lh, i tock n y bclrngitirs erd a stock 
of provisions into it in cider tcpess the winter &• 
best 1 could, 3con covering the cabin with tarred 
paper, completing the icsioe and digging a eella» 
hole beneath the floor. E. C. Arnold, wife and 
two daughters, and myself, were the only inhabit 
tants in the townehip in the winter ol HfiiMh 



xrFAlRS IS KIGHTV-OKE 

THE winter that now followed wm a«l, m m 
whole, a Tery told one, nor wag tbece mmdm 
snow on the ground until the latter half of it^ 
The coldest morniDsrs remembered came betweeo 
Christmas and New Year's, reaching a cliBaax olf 
l^w temperature at perhaps 40 degrees below zero., 
After that there were cccasiocally days of still at* 
mosphere and dear sky, but the temperature wat 
n) ways at the best during the winter months more 
or leas below the freezirg peict. The days which 
^d a ieng:th of about seventeen hours of sunshine 
^jQ June, had now shortened to about 8) hours. 

As stated, the cabin I had buiU was sixteen fa^l 
m length, and it was of the shed roof form eight 
feet studded on the south side and six on the north 
side. This gave slant enough to gbed rain off the 
tarred paper covering. Inside, the cabiQ waa 
divided off by a partition which was made to jog 
in some three feet so as to construct a bunk* The 
smaller room had no floor and was used for & 
woodshed part, in this wae the door leading out- 
aide< but opening inward, and in the partition waa 
another door made of flooring material. There 
were two windows to the cabin, a full one of 12 
bv 8 inches lights in the south front and one sash 
to light the east end woodshed part. On the whole^ 
the cabin was built to live in end was no flimsy 
structure like those |kut up merely to claim, laud. 



I ffifide the bunk tiis:h ccioutirh to shove a trunk 
under it. A lay«r cf b&y wns placed ia the bottom 
v>i the buak, thsa with quilts aad blankets and 
ioMr overeoatii that I had brought into the country 
^9r«ad over all or sandwiched between, I managed 
to sleep fairly comfortable. The stove used wa» 
a moderate sized sheet iron one with two holes for 
>ot9 and skillets. A table was made from pieeea 
»f pine lumber and as I had no chair to sit on, a 
atn^li bench made from the last of the lumber 
that was left had to suffice for the time beinff. 
Whoa ike weather became very cold 1 occasionally 
hr^ard nii?ht3 reports comparable to those made by 
lArg** firecrackers and which came from the roof 
t»r)ard<3. In building the cabin the ola-fashioned 
cut :i&il3 had been used, since the steel wire nails 
had not then came into general uee on aeccunt of 
being more costly than the old kind. 1 thereforr 
sttrmi?^d that the reportn were caused by th« 
breaking ct the oails, bvt seen came to know thai 
this was not the cause. The &team from kettle* 
entered the joints between th^ roof boards and 
formed a cementing of ice and at times eoated th« 
undrr side of the beards with frcgt cwirg to a 
lack of ceiling otfrhewd. Ibk crxtiscticn of th« 
boards on unuasually cold nights caused the iee 
in the cracks to snap asunder in some places, thsA 
producing the loud sounds occasicrally heard. At 
times that winter I experienced more or less dis- 
comfort, but faced such corditioDS ^rfliirclhiiDgly 
with what J presume was the pioCf*er spirit, and ia 
hopes of better surroundings in the aear! future. 



It (tavolved upoo myself to make most •t tke 
irips to the po»toffice to get any chane^Ietteraandl 
alae our weekly papers. On February Sd I mad^ 
9\itk a trip, there being some three inches of snow 
AOL the ground. In the afternoon a light snow 
began falling. While talking with the inmates is 
the log cabin, Mr. Hanson said that the snow fait 
was increasing and advised me to lose ne time in 
getting back home for he feared that a blizzard 
ml^ht ensue. In returning I conoid distinguish 
mv tracks made in the snow on the way to the 
pos^oflice aad followed themdoaely, though inth» 
last anile I be^an to tire down some owing to th» 
fncreasin^ depth of the snow. J reached my cabio 
In the evening just before dark- Sometime in the 
night a gale of wind sprang up and next day a 
blizzard was raging. The storm came from the 
southwest, hence the weather was not very cold. 
The storm raged for three days with occasional 
lulls. After that we did not get to the postoffice 
again for two or three weeks and then only by 
going around by Leavitt's, since the direct route 
across the country could no longer be traveled, 

I aimed to do considerable writing during that 
winter but found that I could not accomplish 
much of anything until March and April. To sit 
long at a table made my feet cold; then if it came 
a moderate day outside, the sun shining in at the 
window combined with the warmth of the 8tove» 
caused the frost above to melt and drip down upoa 
the table. I had braught but little literature 
with me, but a f ries^d in CftUforola sent mc the 



3uaday San Fr aneiaca Chronicle and occasionally 
dome other literature. I ion^ed for certain sc ©Us- 
iific works bat for some years thia sort of reading 
matter lay beyond reach. 

For water i had to go down to the other cabin. 
* little over a half mile south. The tirst snow fall 
ct^ntained dust and did not make water when it 
was D3elted that waa lit to use; but after the bliz- 
ftard there waa a bank of clean snow near the door 
^ di'S into SLud cieit for all the water needed. 

In the latt«r part of March, £. C. Arnold and 
rxiy^saU with two ox teams made a trip to Ojataor 
Xo & i&rm (wo miles south of that place after oats 
Onrfi wheat for .^edinir i^ the 9prin^. In plaeea 
ftJoGgr th<? route the snow was aa much as twenty 
inches deep but the trail was kept packed down 
hiBtxd by passing teams, for at that time builoin|r 
zirrateria^a had begun to be hauled to what was to 
becoiae the Klk Valley Farm. We did not reach 
Qjata tha tint day but stopped with a young: man 
Who was liringr by himself somt: two miles from 
the place. There is not ir>vch of anything: at 
Ojata now, but at that time a small village waa 
grouped about this temporary end of the railro^ 
ten miles weat of Grand Forks. We cleaned th* 
teed grain with a fanning-miU in a granary OBtb* 
farm menticzied. sacked it up and got back t« the 
young man's hostelry in the evening. All of the 
seed grain needed could not have been gotten that 
trip. Some lumber was got for a floor and bin in 
the woodshed part to my cabin and a load of oatt 
was stared there. «iilH Deeded in seeding time* 



2>ttrla7 the laat of March and oarlj part •! April 
ihere ^«tied almost daily a euccessioa of little 
ijlitiard* of short duration and then the sun would 
appear Eirain. Scire of them lasted hardly more 
Oian ten or fifteen minutes, the wind coming from 
southerly quarters. But as late as the lOth of 
April the great body of scow that had accumulated 
on the ground showed no |ign of melting, l-ighi 
northwest winds seemed to keep the temperature 
% little below the freezing point thruout each day. 
The sun was getting high above the southern 
horiton at midday and a glistening cr^st formed 
^ the surface of the snow. This reflected the ray» 
af the sua with a fierce glare such as I had never 
»£€cbeforev A day or two more and the snow 
aext to the ground began turning to slosh. A 
fouth wind eosued ano in the night following the 
booming ftotiad of rushing waters could be heard 
in the coule«3 of the hills two miles and more t« 
the weat. That part of the Elk Valley near the 
hills became flooded over f orj some time with broad 
shallow lakes until the water could drain away. 
Within four days there had ensued a tranaition 
from the chilly air of wictcr totbf genial vaiiLtk 
of spring and appearance of migratory birds. 

Before the snow went off I went to work eo • 
small barn at the farm, about 28 by 24 feet, witk 
pine Bills six inches square. It was never finished 
further than to put up studding all ftround and 
to board up the sides and ends of what waa to be 
its lower story. As left when the lumber on hand 
gave out, it had neither fl^ora »or reof . Uter i^ 



ihe seasoa a shed roofed strueture of the eabii^ 
farm was bailt ia the north end, the boarded up^. 
walia of the intended barn being utilized on three 
sides. Thia was for a span of horses ^ot that 
•pringr and presumably for the cow also. 

Tn putting in the crops th&t season H. F. Arnold 
engaged a young man named Bosard to come ukk 
from near Ojata with teams and a seeder to do^ 
tbe bulk of the work. Two young men had beea 
hired thai spring to work oa the farm until tbe< 
5frouad froze in November. Their names were 
WiUiam Flumfelt and James Eyington, both from 
Ontario, the home of the latter being id Johns* 
tow& township in this county. After the leeding 
jiob was finished the main work was breakios iaor# 
Und . 

With the opening of spring thoae who had pot 
claim shacks on the land in Larimore and other 
Elk Valley townships the previous fail, began al 
once to occupy their claims and to put the shaekl 
into habitable condition for temporary abodes. 
ViTlthout watting for the land to come into market 
these settlers commenced breaking on their claims^ 
To the extent of thus occupyicg land before having 
any chance to file upon it at the nearest U* S. Land 
Office, the Elk Valley settlers were sciuattera om 
government land. 

During the breaking season of 1880. Albert F. 
Clark, who was from Clayton County, Iowa, and 
who had rented a place on Turtle river, broke 29 
acres in the aoutheast qcsrter of Seeticn 12. 
That is the quarter seotiofi upon which the weat 



part of Lsirimorehas beeo built. Clark's break- 
mg extended north and south close to the township^. 
line aod the buildings on the west side of Towner 
avenue stand on sites once a part of the breaklBs:. 
Ciark did not build on his claim that year, but \m> 
March, 1881, he erected a small one-story house 
oa it near it3 southeast, corner.* in the spring of 
l-dSl Clark sowed op«U cm, his breaking:, the 0QI7 
tsrop it ever bore. 

It was the custom of the surveying contractors 
to rsUin their tov^nship plats until their season's 
^7ork was completed in the fall when they were 
turned io to the local land office, the district itself 
iiornpnsine: .^verai counties. The plats were theo 
sent to the interior Department at Washington 
for record ?iiid approval. Then after several 
months they were returned to the district land 
office RXkii the land comprised in the survey repre. 
fenced on the plats waa declared to be open to 
settlement; in other worde, sqt&tters and other 
persona might now make their filings, it wap 
arranged to have two lawyers take tilings at the 
Elk Valley Farm. The land came into market 
iibout the middle of May, 1881, but the lawyers 
were not pre.^ert at the farm until a day or two 
later. Some put in their filings there and others 
at Grand Forks where a U. S. Land Office had 

• CIftrk'8 hooae stood on the present Swain House pronisefl^ 
In the late eighties It waa aiov«d to the north side of a livery 
stable wVicb stood on the site of the Mercantile block and wat 
used for a veterinary'H office. When D. P. McLbId built a resl« 
denceon the corner north of the Johnson Hou«e in l^^Sl. theoffio*. 
WM« again a.oTea aco B.acie ab til to U>e WMt aldf of his hooM' 



bedQ opened (a A.pril 1880. There was oeareelr 

any attempt made that year to file on land iD> 
Moraine tovrnship, nor in Niagara township ex^ 
c^pt by a few squatters who for the two or three 
preceding: years had been holding down elaiiaa 
th'at had some timber on them. 

^ccjrding: to eomrnon saying in those timet th# 
settlers were entitled to 48d acres of land or thre« 
quarter sections; but it did not follow that the^ 
h»i the opportimity to secure that amount of lan^ 
la as a-ijoinin^g body, unless by purchase after 
proving up. A squatter was entitled to hold th^ 
Qtt^rter section he resided upon and nothing more. 
Such quarters were pre-emptions. A pre-emp* 
tiou right aad a homestead could not be ftled otk 
at the same tine; anyone holding a pre-emptioa 
ai%i who wished also to take a homestead, had 
first to prove up on the pre-emption and thiseoold 
be done after six months residence apon it and 
hy paying $L25 per acre for the same at the U. SL 
Land Office. But long before that time all of th6> 
desirable quarter sections in the vicinity of aaell 
person's location would have been filed upon by 
©ther parties^. A tree claim right might be ftled 
at the same time as either of the others. Bnt 
here also there were limitations. Only one sncli 
claim was alio^ved to a section and none at all if 
that section contained any natural timber. Therd 
were many tree claim rights ftlefl in this county, 
but quite generally they were later changed ta 
ho iiesteais or relinquished to others for some coii'. 
sideration for bomeste^ or pfe-amptioa filings. 



£t. C. Aroold g9t the northwest quarter Section 
10 and was enabled to file a tree claim right on 
the southeast quarter of the same section, lor a 
claim shack had been built on it in which the two 
hired men slept and some breaking done. H. F. 
Arnold's pre-emption was the northeast quarter 
of Section 10. It was also desirable to secure th« 
southwest quarter of that section, since this cor* 
Oered where the buildings were located and wa« 
Gfi value for hay land* A brother of Mrs. Arnold 
residing in St. Louis, and ^ho had been in th« 
Civil war, sent up a soldier's claim right which 
held the claim until H. F. Arnold could prove up 
on his preemption, get a relinqaiahment from 
his uncle, and put a homestead filing on the claim. 
Addie L. Arnold got the claim next west of thia 
last and located in iSecticn V, while |i. V. Arnold 
obtained the southeast quarter of Section 9. Al* 
logether in th<e early eighties the farm began with 
six quarter sections representing: 1^60 acres of land. 
Thus at the outset was established one of several 
large farms in the west pert of tljeccutty. 

In the spring of 1881, two ycvcg men caUeiJ 
Stevens Brothers opened a store located on Sectiott 
10, Arvilla township, which, however, was then 
called Orange township. About the same tim« 
Towner and Clark established a sniall lumber yard 
on the premises of the latter, the lumber beioff 
teamed from Ojata, eighteen miles distant. Ther^ 
was considerable building done at the headquar* 
te'-s of the Eilk Valley Farm that season. By that 
time wagon trails were becoiaing marked out OA 



th^ s>rair$e sarfaec^ pajUff no atleatidB to the iee« 
tioo HneB and niDDif g in aL^ direction acrcM 
<:laim8 where not interrupted by &ny breaking. 

Oa June 17th as 1 was makirtg a trip to Stevena 
Ernttheri store I met a party of railroad surveyors 
ruDQioff a line westward on the <]uarter-8ectioft 
Une one half mile north of where the railroad now 
pasaes thru Larimore. This took the aurvej right 
by the few buiidings then on the Arnold farm. 
Hoscever, this was only a preliminary line* subject 
to atteration, and wae only carried to the borders 
lit Moraine township. 

A day ot tvto before the Fourth of July 1 went 
«7ith Byington to his home in Johnstown wherehe 
had au elder brother and two si iters living. After 
leaving HaoKon's place on Turtle river, we passed 
cA«e dwelling north of there and saw no other until 
Gilby township was reached. Our route lay thru 
the north part of Hcgton and the south part of 
Wheatdeld townships, the country thereabout oot 
being settled at that time* 1 recollect crossing a 
halfbreed trail in that section which ran aorth* 
ward. When we returned on the 5th we stoppf4 
a short time at Hanson's and found Gates there 
(mentioned pngre bO) who told us of the shooting 
of President Gartield. The particulars of this 
detestable tragedy were gotten later in the news» 
papers. 

About harvest time H. F. Arnold got a bindet 
which bound the bundles with wire the sizs of 
that used in making brooms. The wire binder 
had been in use for leveral yegrs^ while Ikt twtae 



biod«r f7;te JGgt thf^ts bein? pf>r?eeted. t «iw &• 
more wir9 biaders aftur that year, as though th« 
oachtnerr dealers arranged with farmers to hav# 
tinem turned in for alteration aud in exchange for 
twiod biodera, with no great loss to the farmers 
themselves. In threshing the wire bands were 
cut with a too! like nippers held in one hand aod 
which also held the wire until thrown hack where 
A pile or wad of ft gathered at the foot of tha 
band cutter's stand. 

the threshing at the Arnold farm was doae 
e&rly in October. The grata had been stacked aa 
&ad b^en eastamar/ in Minnesota. Ahorsepowar 
machine and crew came and did the work wiUl 
th? help of those on the farm and I think a few 
hired persons and teams besides. It took seTerM 
days to complete the job. On those machines 
four or five span of horses were attached to a 
rig called the * 'horsepower*' set about three rede 
back from the separator, kept circling around bj 
a driver, and treading a ring on the ground about 
the same diameter as a merry-go-round. The 
concection with the separator was made by % 
jointed shaft which slanted up to one end of the 
cylinder shaft, with bereled gears, but where H 
left the rig It was cIofc to the prccnd end cov* 
ered so the horaea could tread over it. The horses 
drove the separator with about the same vim as a 
steam engine does. The itraw was elevated some 
ten feet high by a slanting carrier and run into a 
higher straw pile, two or three men working with 
pitchforks on the pile whea it got large end high. 



h\\ thb wsbs a cantiauanee in Dakota of threshinsr 
Taet'aods Ions: in use f n Minnesota and other wheat 
raisifigr states, 

ilcccrdiG^ to machine measure the crop on the 
farm amoaated to 2,438 busheia of wheat, a large 
^rnouQt of oats and I think some flax that had been 
^own Oft new breaking:. Before threshini^. lumber 
had beca gotten, and a temporary granary sixty 
^:>r oiore feet ia leni?th built. Much of the wheat 
W43 stored in this structure until next spring and 
%hen being cleaned by runnin^r it thru a fanning 
otiil, it was sold at $1.25 per bushel for seeding 
jmrpo3€9. There was considerable breaking dane 
on the farm that firot crop .vear, aa much or more 
Shaa daring the breaking: season of 1880. 

Larjmore township was organized in August^ 
1831. The organization included Moraine town- 
shi J uatii 183 i, thousrh when this movement was 
effected there was sarcely an inhabitant residing 
within tha limits of the latter township. Lari* 
uTiore township was named after N. G. and Joha 
W. Larimore, who, with JohnN. and Thos. Booth, 
grain commission men of St. Louis, constituted 
the Elk Valley Farming company. In the same 
month Lucius? P. Goodhue established a country 
store near the future townsite. This stood on a 
slight rise of ground south of the railroad and joit 
east of the present Imperial elevator. 

As before stated, the first railroad survey in thia 
vicinity was merely a preliminary line. It wat 
next changed a half mile south so as to pass eleia 
to the south side of the proposed townsite* and 



thea continued west on the south side of the road 
le&di&g to Moraine townBbip» but before reaching 
the foot of the hills thia line curved toward the 
aorthv^est. The railroad company also surveyed 
a Hoe from the site of Larimore to Forest river. 
yhe grading that year between Ojata and the 
Larimore townsite had been finshed and gradert 
^ere at work west of it to a point a half mile south 
of the buildings on the Arnold farm when a party 
id iNorthern Pacific Railroad surveyors appeared 
running find staking out a line from May ville to 
Foreitriveft ao extension of what was called the 
Oaaaelton branch of the Northern Pacific, which 
'isad baen completed to Maj-viile, The graders 
weil of the townsite were now called off and set 
to work on the line that the Manitoba company 
had surveyed to Forest river. Nor was the grad* 
ing directly west of Larimore ever resumed; both 
that and the second survey were later abandoned 
for the route a mile farther north where the rail- 
road now runs across the Elk Valley. 

In October Alex. Oldham, the county surveyor, 
came from Grand Forks and began laying cut the 
townsite on Clark's claim and on another acrosi 
the tojvnship line next east of it. . We think that 
the surveyor or whoever drafted the plat he used, 
got the site crowded on its south side too close t# 
the railroad right of way, since lots in several 
blocks were afterwards detached to irake enongh 
Boace for a merchandise track and passway; be- 
sides, the row of blocks on the north side of the 
townsite are wider than elsewhere upon it. The 



4lrit buitdittir erteted on the tu^nstte for husIaeM 
p\XTpoi€9 wa8ftir«ncral merchandise store putupt 
df Nicholas S. NeUon who came f rem Grand Forks 
t? establifh himself here and the building: inqae«^ 
tion occupied the site ot the Elk Valley Bank for 
iboat twenty y^ar?. Other basineaa places and 
fomt ahaeks followed during the fall, the ereeU«A 
of ioae of them g^oingr oa while the laying out of 
IH^ towosite wat still in pro^rtss. 

ruHnir the fall tk6 Northern Pacific branch wm» 
jl^rad^ north vfard from ftfarville, tbe grad« be« 
fnif carriid mme uven mlea beyond Larimort. 
It cr^siei the dast p<irc of the to ^rnsite in a oorlh- 
^e^terly direction, bat that portion of the grtdt 
t^TJi LarVrftor<> and beyond waa never ironed. 
This grade H almost entirely oMltvratcd. tbouyli 
the ramaina of eccbankmcnti where it crossed tke 
loath branch of Tnrtle rlver» near the £Mtfat% 
S^l&ea» are still observable. Beth of tbe railyard 
companies wasted thcusande of dollars la tim 
vicinity of Larinore on surveys and grades tbal 
th^y never ntllited. 

At the farm the fall work was mainly ptawlef 
ttnder the f.tQbhte cf the tint land cropped aa4 
backsetting sQch breaking as had beta dOM tM# 
^ear. Late in the fall the prt-emptioa elaSmt #f 
fi. C, Addie L., and H. f. Arnold were provea «p« 
The holder of a pre-emption might reside ot i| 
for two years after Klirg on tt before makingani^ 
final proof by eommutation, tbat is, proving resi« 
dejiee hy witine^ses and by paying ^ fall the osoil 
goveramefit price tper Hft* 



the railroad reached Laritnort Wednesday after- 
soon. Novembftr 22, 1881. There were about 
thirty perfions in the place whcD the track came, 
mostly carpenters^ laborers and owners of build* 
inga. To this number a considerable railroad 
force was now added who were housed in boarding 
cars. Siiia lay* 9?efa spent in puttinir down i^ 
tiid^ track, turntable, buildinsr a depot, etc., then 
tbe new piece of road thus far used by the supply 
Vr&ins, waa opened to e:eneral traffic on Sunday, 
Oacember 1st. At first miiced trains were run to 
Lari nore every alt^rnatd day and the first one to 
arrive brought mail to the new town. Goodhue 
having previously been appointed postmaster. 
A hotel and a boarding: house were early com* 
plated, one or two lumber yards were established! 
fever^l stores opened, a blacksmith shop and % 
livery stable running, and l&stly, a bank bailding 
istarted, all before the middle of December. The 
bank stood on the corner cow occupied by the 
C. N. Swanson residence; it was a two-story strne« 
ture and measured 60 by 24 feet. 

Althouj?h the ji^round had frozen on the surfaet 
liibout the same time as in the previous year, so aa 
to stop fall plowing:, weather conditions remained 
Ane until January 4thc when a »now storm sad 
belo'*' zero temperature stopped active work. Il| 
the latter part of December, Stevens Brothers 
took down their store in Arvtlla townsliip prd 
rebuilt it faein? Booth avenue in the bioek wm| 
of the one now occupied hf tbe public sctieol 
buildioffs a a I g/aaaasiuoi. L. P. Goodhue moved 



7t WfCTY t&KtOA IN nORTH DAKOTA 

his store bodily to the townsite about Chrittnat 
and placed it on Towner avenue where the Co* 
aperative store now does business next north of 
the Mercantile block. In December a man began 
buying wheat in town as brought in sacked up. 
A pair of scales was placed just within the doora 
af a box car, the wheat weighed, several sacks at 
a draft, and emptied into either end of the ear. 
The price paid at that time was dS cents to $1.0(^ 
per bushel. The first hardware store in town 
was built in December by Baughman & Moore« 
r.WD Ohio men and they had it opened shortly after 
the end of the month and year. Several saloons 
were also open before the year closed. 

The settlers who came upon their claims ia th« 
apring of 1881 could not raise any wheat crop thai 
first year as the land had to be broken and back* 
set and the turf dry rotted. A man of the namt 
of Thompson who lived in Grand Forks had filed 
on the quarter next west of £. C. Arnold's claim, 
had some breaking done on it, and worked on the 
Arnold farm to some extent while occupying hit 
claim shack. He was to make final proof of hit 
claim December 20th, and of the four witncssea 
of his residence on the claim named in the pub» 
lished notice, he chose myself and Wm. Plurofelt, 
Byington had returned to Johnstown and F1iib« 
felt was then living in Larimore. This to^k «• t« 
Grand Forks, the first opportunity that eumt im 
my way to see the place. Though not the aita of 
a small city, it was then soorethicg of a tewi. 



V, 
THE BOO^ YEAR AND LATER 

A3 has been incidenUlly stated, the year 1882 
marked a fioodtide in regard to imroigratioii 
into eastern North Dakota and which extended 
westward in this latitude as far as Devils lake. 
In the main, those who came thatyear were either 
Rgriculturists or intended to become euch by 
taking up laad. But with them came also a Urf« 
sleraent habituated to town life, intending t* 
®ng:age in nereaatile pursuits and numerous other 
vocadana in the new raiiroad towns and villages 
then being started. In a larg«- measure the im- 
migration movennent of that year was inaugural 
ed by extensive advertising on the part of real 
estate men and otherg Interested in townsites, 
who flooded the eastern states with boom liter- 
ature describing the capabilities of the country 
In glowing terms and with avein of exaggeration. 
In former years people came into the Red River 
Valley by emigrant wagons or in small parties by 
stage, or by steamboat or flatboat down Red riv«r; 
now it wag hs'^^ming possible to reach the valley 
by railroad and to load freight cars with horses, 
farming implements and household goods and 
bill them thru from distant points. In this way, 
settlers came from as far east as New York stat* 
and from as far south as Missouri and Kentucky. 
The myth that Dakota was part of a supposed 
"Great American Desert** was already dissipated. 



7) r««rr r&ja w ttott^m Dakota 

As tt&ted!,, the frtoter wfts cpen like op to earljr 
in Jaft-i&rjr aad the character of the weather be- 
fore Bad after the railro&d canoe* facilitated such 
hailding: operations as were in proi^rees en the 
t^^Qsite dariogr several weeks prior to the adveot 
of real v7iot«r weather with snow aad 8t9rm8. 
?eople ta the surroundlcfir country could now get 
their mail in towa ia-jtead of eoiofir or sendiag to 
Sanson's, four or fire to seven miles distant for 
ACine of them. Oat at the farm two miles west 
(4 Larimore« ther^ was tittle to do those short 
printer days besides taking care of the stock. It 
«iij about three miles from my eabia into tows 
aij oae of the wasroa trails ran, and I had bought 
raitariaU aid pat the inside of the cabin into fair* 
\y comfortable condition for tte seccnd wtDtcr to 
bo spent in it. There was cow such a variety of 
atores in the new village that one could buy any 
of the common cosnmoditiei ceeded, though at 
(irst the merchantsjiid not aim to carry in hand 
very lar^e stocks of goods. 

Darin? the winter H. K* Arnold managed to 
secure four quarter sections by buying up soait 
relinquishments of parties who had cot proven 
up. A. pre*emptien right of 160 acree in Sectiona 
4 %ni 9 had been died on by a person of the namo 
of Challenir, also a tree claim right, the south- 
eait quarter of 4. He went into business at 
Graf cm aid H^ac* eiuld n^t reside upon the first 
nor develop the other. The tree claim right waa 
therefore jrelinquished to Addie L. Arnold and 
ths homestead to E« C. Arnold. The third of tho 



THE l^CK^W f BAH AK1> LATltl 75 

leireral relintiuishmeBts was the eouthwest quai'* 
t«r of Sectioa 10, held as before mentioned, as a 
aoidier'a pre-emption, on which H. F. Arnold put 
t homestead filing. The fourth of the relinquish* 
«d quarter* waa purchft&ed for 5^360 f rem a party 
who had filed on the northeast Section 16. This 
ciaim lay directly south of the one that H. F. Ar- 
nold had homesteaded, but at that time it wag not 
considered a» valuable as the others, since in ease 
the snow went oS suddenly in the spring, most of 
\t was subject to being fiooded, A.ddie L. Arnold 
put a homestead filing on it. The reltnquiehiceDt 
taken over by E. C. Arnold was a mile in length 
and a quarter mile in width, or eighty acres t^ 
i>Hch of the two secliors coiot^ining it. There 
was a claim shack twelve feet square on it near 
the section line trail that later became the Stomp 
Lake ro&d, and this was mot^ to the southeast 
eorner of its south eighty a mile west of the farm 
buildings. The quart>er on which H, F. Arnold 
made his homestead filing previously was consid- 
ered as part of the farm (p- 68) but the oth^ir 
relinquishments added 480 acres to its already 
large area making a total of 1,440 acres. 

Quite a body of snow accumulated on the ground 
during the latter part of winter but it melted oft 
suddenly during the last days of March, floodinf 
the plain nearest the hills as in the spring of 1881, 
The night of the Slst a brisk wind and cold wave 
eame from the northwest, the temperature sink- 
ing to zero or a little below so that ice eerered 
the waters on the moroiog of the first ef Aprils 



?4 i*Mfert xwiM IN woftTJd Dakota 

To return aow to the immis:rtt!on movement of 
1882, The vanguard of the d< w arrivals begaQ 
eoraing into the country duringc the last half of 
March while the enow still lay on the ground, but 
the bulk of the immigration came in April and May 
and fiome in June. We can ouly refer to such 
part of it as made Larimore their objective point 
which was then as far west as they could get by 
railroad in this part of Dakota. Those who ar« 
rived in March had to find ehelt^r hb they could; 
Hi xne bought lumber and put up ahaeks near the 
end of the track in what ib no7»: the southwest 
i;art of ta^u; presumably others who shipped id 
^heir effects p&rtiaily unloaded the box cars and 
ivrad vi tfia n a while; in fact, to one aide of the 
track there were gathered at times piles of im* j 
.Tji?r&Rt*s be!oagiQg3. Their families, generally, 
iid not come until after they had got settled OQ 
ciaiuis. The chief bliizard of the winter 'cam« 
from the southeast on the 4th of March and one 
ftr t«va leaser storms of short duration also ensued 
after the immigrants haii be^un to arrive; but to 
m&ny of thv^m the transition from winter weather 
to actufcii spring that year seamed to occur In thif 
northern latitude with n^frktd Ircility. 

The opening of spring Inangurated an interval 
of unusual activity on the part of those already in 
the country end those arriving later in time to 
take part in the movement. The townsitc com- 
pany and the Elk Valley Farming company were 
identical so far as financial interests were coa- 
cerned, and thru their ageot. O. M. Towoer^sold 



VS& 1^K)]« rSAR Aim LAT9R 75 

8 iftfl^c eamber of Iot« betvtreen the layfo^ out of 
the ti^wQgite and the end of March, and many 
more in April and May. Two blocks in the mid»t 
of iown, those containing the city hall and the 
Gchooi buildings, were reserved fcr public pmr- 
posei. The buildinga piit up ir, 1881, rrainly ia 
November and December, formed in the spring 
something: of a hollow sc^uare, bounded north! by 
ft fe^ business buildings in blocks 48 and 4d on 
Third street; on the east by iotattering buildini^t 
ftn both sides of Towner avenue; south by the 
Srst depot, a temporary storehcuse fcr Fort 
Totten supplies, and a lumber yard or two with 
their offices; and on the west by Booth aveoud 
with just a few structures, ore of ^hich was 
^tdvcDO Brothers store. Nor were the buildings 
within these limits erected upon undisturbed 
ground; the party who first owned the quarter 
on the east side of the township line had brokea 
a strip of ground there in 1880; nsxt west of that 
came the stubble of Clark's twenty acre field of 
oats, and adjoining it west he turned over in '81 
thirty more acres of the prairie turf which was 
nev«r even backset. There were no framed resi- 
dences built on the townsite in 1881; people lived 
in shacksi in the lofts over business piaees or 
stayed at a hotel and one or two boarding places. 
Usually the business men had left their families 
in their former homes until they could build resi* 
denees in Lariraore. 

With the opening of spring a veritable buildiff 
boom seemed to have struck the new town. Ili« 



t6 PoaiT tBAKtt w norm Uakota 

rftrio\if persons wbt hiid bought lots were now 
apparently seised with & mania to erect buEicess 
baiidingi« or residences upon ibem acccrdiLg to 
bcation, the iatter eort being more needed in 
some cases thaa the first mentioned kind. Thra 
«acb day the noise of sa^s and clatter of hammera 
van iac?33aat aad aa the days lengthened, carpen* 
ters often put in ttxtra tims after the supper hour, 
}a thia rush of baiidio? no attention was paid to 
permanent foundations; inetc&d, wooden blockt 
generally were used and cellars were Urge holes 
da? in the graaad with a trap door above them 
i.i the fioor. Called cellars and stone foundft* 
ti.>ii4 waj a matter left for future conaideration. 
Tne inside walls of business buildings usually 
were ceiled with flooring materials with the same 
overhead. Everything was then wooden buill 
in the new town. 

Among the buildings erected that spring were 
two large hoteU in the southwestern quarter of 
block 37, that is to say, in the block next to the 
north of the one that now contains the Methodist 
church. Both hotels fronted Booth avenue and 
the oia oa the c^r/ier of the block was erected by 
Geo. D. Leavitt acd hia brother-in-law, a man of 
the name of Coleman. They called it the Grand 
Central. Later in the year it was purchased by • 
man named Frank C. Swain who enlarged it and 
re-aamed it the Swain House. The other hotel 
stood next n^rth of it, and was erected by L. C. 
Neil who called it the Sherman House. On the 
corner ndxtsauth of the hateU stood e foxDit^re 



TUB BOOK YBAX Am> tATSB 7? 

Atore owfted by 0. B. Thomas and managed hy 
Orr Saaders; then across the avenue west stood % 
iWQ'Btory general merchandige store, dinnec8ioi.& 
$0 by 24 feet, owned by Cantwell, Ballard & Co.^ 
this latter corner location now being occupied bf 
the residence of A. P. Lord. 

To any one not familiar with the early history 
of Larimore, it may seem singular that two large 
hotels and two business houses should ever have 
been built in a location a quarter of a mil;e north 
of the railroad depot and in what is now merely 
4 residence section of town. The grade of th« 
Northern Pacific "Casselton Branch/' it has been 
stated, crossed the more eastern part of the town* 
site in a northwestern direction. There was a 
printed plat of the townsite circulated at that 
time and this represented the depot of the branch 
line a3 prospectively located in the block next to 
the north of the one containing the hotels. The 
object had been to place the buildings mentioned 
between two depots and not far from one of them. 
Larimore was represented on a newspaper map aa 
being quite a railroad center, branches of both 
the Northern Pacific and Manitoba railroads being 
shown as entering the town from the south. Now 
it was this illusion in regard to supposed futur# 
prospects of the new town that spurred on tht 
local building boom so long as it lasted. 

The train to Larimore was still a m^ed ob« 
but since March it now arrived daily, a (oag Udb 
of box cars loaded with emigrant's outfits, mer» 
ehandise, lumber, farm maehinery andslao atock 



•:ar3 with horses. The passeii^ier coRch«», etc.,, 
wer<? at the rear end of the train and when these 
cskme td a stop at the depot a crowd of people, 
most 9tU men, ftled out and scattered over town. 
Mo«taf th«m were new corners, lured here by 
iDoom literature and newspaper write-ups, and 
came to investlt^ate the prospects of both town 
jicd country. Sarly in the season Moraine town* 
tihip was overrun by settlers, larg:ely from New 
Tork state aad MichijTiifi, and enough came from 
Nfaa'ara CounSy, N. Y., to give the same name to 
ihe towhship r.ext north of Moraine. A stage 
ime t>r tv\fo was iy^ned to Scump and Devils lakes 
'Mid the Fort Totten trail, as a mail route, was 
discontinued that spring:. Two roads on section 
iices ieading westward from Larimore,on€a half- 
ciile .youth and the other the oame distance north 
of th'.j huilcJirig-s on the Arnold farm, were much 
traveled by loaded teame thatspringc and summer 
^rrying: buildJiu/ materials, hcuetholdaroodsand 
merchnadise into the couctry west, even as far aa 
the north shore of Devils lake. The most nojrthero 
of these routes waw called the Stump Lake road. 
A railroad aur^eyiag party catre to Lariniore 
in May and resumed \^ork in the country west, but 
aline they surveyed in Nelson County was thrown 
ap for another route several miles farther north 
where ths railroad is now located, it appears that 
wh?5n the enflrineericpT department of the railroad 
came to examine the levels where the line ae run 
would surmount the eastern slope of the uplands, 
it would Feqfuiro frradea steeper than was desirable 



aYid hecieft a L'e<[ocatioiQ of the line was ordered 
which took the road more diiigotitUy up the slope 
^i the hillg ia Elm Grove aod Niagara townships^ 
the aseeQt ia dve or bix milea being nearly three 
ktiadred feet. This last ourvey started from the 
grrade of the coi th iisiic^ 6cme 2| iscileg northweit 
of Lartmore, and from this junctioti antii sear the 
billiii the railroad i£ on a (^tuarter-secticn line. !% 
JuQQ gan^a of cuea were set to work gradi^ thia 
&6W •steceioci of the road acd a track was laid 
|or about a miU out of towa to form a temporary 
yard for s&thering ?aiUot<l KaterieU. 

Th^ settlers of Larimore to'jff'nKhip, grenerally, 
had Bowa in the gpring what fcr ihtt jeer vctjld 
he their firat crop raised upon such tracts of land 
as each had been able to break on their daimti 
the previous year. Usually the fields under cul* 
tivation were not large. The Arnold farm thai 
year was rented to Wm. H. Whitney and Martia 
T. Copp, brother«-iri-law, immigrants from May- 
villa, N. Y., who had come i:\ March and brought 
househaod srocfig ^vd horses. Mayville is located 
on Lake Chautauqua, &nd they had operated % 
flteaniboat on the lake, being acquainted wltb 
Rev. John R. Vincent the orfgiretrr of the Chau» 
tauqua idea. The family ccnsietf d of Mr. and 
Mrs. Whitufy, a maiden sister of the latter, aad 
M. T. Copp. Capt. Whitney eIro had a bos, ft 
young roan who cetr^e later In the year. 

The reasfja of renting the now large farm was 
that H. F. Arnold havip.g plscrcd .doring the 



S© ?osTf Y»A»9 m tnmrm Dakota 

previous wiater «eT«r«l projects not directly 
eo&Qected witb 4t« maeaerenneat, except ai itifc 
insome mig:ht be a means of providiDg: necessary 
funds, might have the tirce needed to develop 
these projeet«. The iari^eet was a colonizationi 
pivLU to assist sotpe reiatives in settling on unsob* 
divided lands in Nelson County; another project 
pf&a tc build a houss in Grand Forks eo that the 
fanily coald raaide there winters; lastly, since oa 
real hoases had then been built in Larimore, soeqi^ 
fimall one-story cottages to rent seemed td be ik 
^j'obsbia £o>t iavdsttnent. Uow as these plaQt 
$ould not be carried into effect and the farm, so^ 
far as ihe^ broken, probably net exceeding ZSQ 
9,iire3, managed at the same time, the wholt waa 
rencdd for the year 18^;^, as mentioaed* to Copp 
£f>. Whitney who were capable mtinagerj*. 

The drst thing to be done: that spring was •• 
er<fct two small one-story hcu£e» on tWQ of ihfi 
relinquishments. The first atood in Settien 15 a 
haJf miie south of the farm buildings aboi^t wher# 
one of the Elk Valley Farm retiidt^nces is now 
located. The other was built across the roid 
from it near a corner of the southwest quartfy 
Section 10- The boupcB having been completed^ 
the family distributed thcmseivee vpcn the thrc* 
homestead relinquishments until toward the close 
of the year, while the Copp Whitney family occu* 
pied the long cabin, which by that time had beea 
lengthened to thirty-f?ix feet. Mrs Whitseyand 
her sister did not at first come to th^ f^T^ owi|ic 
ta a lack Pf aecomraodationa. 



THS l»L»Jtt YSAK AWfl- Lxtlgft 81 

During ths winter H. F. AraoU had arranged 
by ccrrespondenc* with relatives in Rhode lelacd 
lo come to Dakota and take up land. iThese were 
t'*?o fiistere of Mrc. E. C. Arricld, Kosamocd A* 
.Steere and Mrs. Francei E. McKetitie (a widow)^ 
l^ud their aged mother. A brother of the two 
listers, James M. Steere. resided in St. Louis and. 
hiii a wife and three children and it was arranged 
^0 have him send his f amity and bring up with them 
from Missouri three near relatives of Mrs. Steere. 
«H v/omen. Mr- Steere wrm employed in a rail- 
road office* and could not coCiC at that time. 

H, ¥■ Arnold looked over Kt^eoA County in the 
aisTitig aiid fnad^ choice of a location in Town 15S 
Kanj^eSii, about five trilea northwest from where 
Michittan City was started about a year later, 
Thtre is a l«ke in the east part of the township 
libout U mile iong and a quarter of a mile wide 
which H. F. A^rnold named Lorttta lakcaft«r the 
?niiib aa-ne of his eldest sister. East of the lake 
the land is somewhat rolling but the west side of 
it h more level like. Four quarter sections were 
gelecUMi on that side of the lake adjacent to ite 
aorthern end upon which to build housea for tha 
people whcf v,orr to come up from St. Louis. Te 
furnish part of the lunr:b>r to build tb€ bcuses the 
temporary granary on the farnr. was taken down 
ani Copo and Whitney, who helped the writer in 
this work, remarked that they did not think that 
taking down a building Btill good for some yeare 
to come and carting the luinber cff the place wet 
^ny wise pr^ceediOig, « ^urtniae that tisn^ proved 



B% fK>Kn Ti&AJKA m wyaLVd dakot 

to bs quits correct. In May, Copp ecd Whitrey, 

having: horse teams, h&uled several loads of build* 
tag materials out to Loretta lake. H. F. Arnold 
and myself accompanied them the first trip and 
all of us spent several days there, doirg: lome 
preliminary work, nuch as locating ccicere cl 
Quarter sections. The north and south toiKOfhip 
Une which already was marked by mound posts* 
r&n close east of the lake, and its north line was 
a^out 1^ mild distant, thus farnishin? points for 
ranging:. We had come provided for a camp and 
some of the lumber made a temporary shelter. 

The construction of four one-story houses wai 
(kaiiruQ toward the end of May, then the other 
three men returned back to the farm and I was 
left alone for a week in the township, probably 
the only inhabitant then within its limits. I had 
the first of the four houses, 18 by 12 feet, well 
mlong when Copp and Whitney arrived late one 
afternoon with more lumber and there came with 
them a carpenter with his chest of tools. By the 
time th^ first house was completed, or soon after, 
Mrs. J. M Steere and children, who had beea 
staying for some time at the farm, moved out to 
the lake, being well supplied with houshhold goods 
that had been shipped up from St. Louis. Th« 
relatives of Mrs. Steere, whose family name was 
Baker, arrived later. There came with them % 
young man, a relative, not old enough to take up 
land, to work on the place, and he was provided 
with a wagon and yoke of oxen from the Arnold 
farm. The houses were located near each other 



rHK mjKnn tiPA« aki> iatkr 8t 

in the corners of four quarter sections- They 
h&d shingled roofs, but were not finished inside, 
nor did they need this for summer and fall use. 
Before all of the work was wholly done the other 
^an left for Stump or Devils lake and himself and 
liis tool chest were taken south some five railed 
% the ox team to the F)rt Totten trail whert lie 
«ouM intercept one of the stages. 

The Rhode Island contingent came later and 
located about the southern end of the lake, shti 
4>ofed cabins being provided. These presumabljp 
were built by H. F. Arnold and his uncle, Jas. M. 
Steera, who came up from St Louis for a While 
l^at summer. On Sunday, June 25th, one of the 
ioagest days of summer, the writer returned to 
his cabin at the Arnold farnn, which at that time 
was owned severally by different Dieaabers of the 
family. The young man mentioned was to make 
^ trip with the ox team for supplies and the jour- 
ney back was in that way with tools and camping 
outfit. We reached the summit of the uplands 
nbout sunset. The Elk Valley in its livery of 
green looked fine after a month's absence, witli 
Larimore toward its eastern side, then wholly 
unobscured by any cultivated trees. Just after 
my return t added twelve feet to my cabin whicb 
gave it a length of 28 feet with ample room. 

To return now to affairs in Larimore. Early 
in June a disturbing report was circulated to the 
effect that the Northern Paeific Railroad compaey 
would not build into Lartmare as they had eithef 



64 ro«TT trsiLK» IK m)?ira Dakota 

Bold or traded the grade of thetr Casselton Branch 
Hne to the Manitoba eomp&ny, consequently no 
competing: line of railroad into Laiiirore was to 
be expected' Altho this report was n«t officially 
confirqied until October, it forthwith checked the 
bttildinj? boom in progress and stopped the sale 
of to ^a lots. Before this report was heard of» 
Captain Whitney, hearing the distant sound of 
ham mere in town, remarked to the writer, ' Thig 
fcljiu^ is not going to last; after a while the rail- 
road will raj/e on and Larimore will dwindle to 
A one-horse town/' Ctrpcct^is v^trfe stil! kept 
at work to finish a few basiaess places that were 
already under way, and also some residences of 
whi^h latter as many as forty were built on the 
towu3ice that year. Persons who had built their 
busineas places north of Third street and in blocks 
48 and 4i» bordering that Etreet, now began to 
realize that in all probability a mistake had been 
made/in regard to their locations. Only a few dayi 
before the boom had begun to collapse, Frank C. 
:Swain purchised of Liavitt & Coleman the Grand 
Central hotel for $(5,750. 

in the midst of an iaterval of ia'leciaion that 
folio <ved the C&sselton Br&nch runrcr, the new 
town experienced a disaitcr. Early on the morn* 
ing of June 'Zyth fire broke out in an addition 
being built to the rear of the Union House. Thii 
was the first hotel built in Larimore and occupied 
the site now covered by the Ecvth half of the 
Larmour block. The tc\vn had no fire protection 
nod all of the buildings in the block wbcreit bor^ 



ders Qtk Tovraer avenus wer* destroyted except th# 
Nelson store on the cornier which was MTcd by 
pulling down an unfinished store aad a barber'a 
shop next to the north. Le&ping aeross the aTtnve 
thefiamea also took everything on that side fronft 
the present Wiiiiamxi' corqer south as far as the 
alley. In that block a store and a harness shop 
fronting Seeond street were also destroyed. In 
the block east of the city hall there were then n» 
huiidinffs on the avenue except at tbe cornera 
and on the south one KiefFer & Rega^ had a new 
store destroyed into which they had just begua 
to move goods.^ Altogether about twenty business 
places vrere destroyed. The lo&s was estimated 
at $55,000, only about one-third covered by in* 
fiurance. Gradually most of the burned buildings 
were replaced by others, not as good in some 
instances as those destroyed on the same sites. 

In 1832 there were as many as nine hotels ia 
Larimore, also two or three boarding places. 
The Swain and Sherman houses were the principal 
^nes anong them all. As many as nine saloons 
were open, besides the bars maintained in some 
of the hotels. Those, indeed, were territorial 
days when the people could not vote for presides* 
tial electors, nor elect their governors or district 
judcres; when also the name North Dakota though 
used in print for a convenient designation for the 
north half of the territory, still, had no official 
significance. Two elevators were built that year 
south of the track and to the west of the erossiagi 
After the fire H. A. NoUimeir whose grofsry store 



trest of WilttamB' corner had been burntd deim^ 
rebuilt it on the corner where the Mmiosie Tempi* 
new Btands. His new building wae two stories ia 
heiffht and meaaured 60 by 24 feet, a village hall 
reached by stairs on the north aide.eomprisinffth* 
ddcond story. This bi^gan to be used by traveiiaf 
troupes of entertai&ers and on Sundays for reliff* 
Hous services. Oity om denomination, the Prafl< 
byteriaa, erected a church in Larimore that year* 
this stood until the late fall of 1887 on the comer 
lots now occupied by the residence of Amoa D. 
HenrT. Later in the fall, most of the earpenteri 
kav'ing departed, the town t)cgan to aasome ai 
^.trdixi&ry routine, its popalation probably not es* 
oeedlnar nine hundred. Early in November the 
hall mentioned was fitted op for school purposet* 
Two weekly papers called the Pioneer and the 
Leader had been started by Grand Forks parties. 
Over the west part of town residences were i* 
seattered order and it was the same in the east 
jnd. Of the basiness buildings in existence at 
the close of the year, not many are now left and 
the fronts of those still left on Towner avenue are 
now as later remodeled. Kot a few went by fire ia 
different years and others were torn dowa to be 
replaced by more substantial structures. A few 
have been rebuilt over leaving: only parts of the 
orifrinal materials ia them. The same conditions 
apply to the houses with the additional item thai 
some of them and others of later date were moved 
durintc years of depreeaio^ U^ farms in the ear* 
rAUadinsr couAtry« 



rak woom vbia« awd later 87 

In the eountrj around Larimore fair crops 
^Sfere raised, much of the land Bown to wheat in 
1882 bein^ on ground broken the previous year* 
The price paid for wheat, though fair, was lee« 
than for the crop of 1881. In August the writer 
tnade a second trip out to the Nelson County set* 
tlement to do soice work there. E. C. Arccld 
9ame out later and we put up a stack of hay. At 
that time the railroad was being graded a few 
miles south of the setviemeEt. We returned t» 
the Arnold farm by an ox team Sunday, Sept. 1#. 
A large construction force had began laying th« 
Xrack of the railroad and during the week after 
our return they were laying ties and rails, at 
brought for>»ard by construction trains, along 
the slope of the hills. 

Thru most of the fall following the writer wat 
one of a threshing crew on a steam machine own- 
ed by Geo. Knauss who had rented a farm acrosf 
the track from the Arnold farm. He had thresh* 
ed at the Mathews farm and then came to do the 
rather large job of Copp & Whitney. This was 
done from the shock, but elsewhere we mainly 
threshed from stacks. Threshing rigs were still 
limited and farmerb had generally stacked their 
grain, not knowing when they could have a ma- 
chine come on their pieces. In thcfie days the 
machines had straw-stackers, or the straw was 
drawn in heaps right and left by a man operating 
a drag pole with a span of horses. The "blower" 
was then an invention that lay many years in the 
future. Having finished a nunr^ber of jobs Berth 



09 VQucrt xmM m ifos-m Dakota 

aad northeast of the track, we next worked 

southward in the eastern part of Arvilla towQ£hip 
aad as far as Avon township. Thifi was in Octo* 
ber and occasionally we were delayed a day or tw* 
by fall rains wetting the outsides of the stacks. 
In sttcb instances myself and two Illinois men 
who had elaims between Stump lake and Bartlett, 
would foot it to my cabin, stoppirg Icng enoughi 
in town to sret a meal at some restaurant and buy 
provisions for short stays away from the machtneo 
FotatoeB 1 had in abundance from a garden plot. 
Our w-Agei wero $2.00 pet day paid by farmer9 
directly to the hands not of the machine men attlie 
toicl j^ion of eat:h separate job. We had blank* 
nts ^ith us and usually slept in barns. Our work 
end^id early in November, it had its hardships 
to aorne extent, but we rather enjoyed it. Th« 
machidi? did not run Sundays and I will not iay 
that on passing thru town S&turday evenings w« 
observed strict temperance prirciples. However, 
with so many drinking places in town it was only 
on rare occasions that I ever entered any of them 
and then only because in company with others. 

Having uo'?^' spent two and a half years \m 
Dakota Territory, I left Larimore early oo tht 
morning of November 16th for Houston County* 
Minn. From Minneapolis the route taken wm 
aouth thru Northfield ard Fetihetiltto Owatonna; 
then east thru Rochester and south again to Pre»» 
ton. I traveled leisurely, paying local fare bt- 
tween some points after leaving Misneapolii, aa 
to Northaeld lo as to atop off betwseo traUa.^AJi 



m&ttert utood by takliiir thie round abont Tont^% 
tt iavolved etopping over eight Bt Owatocna, 
Chatfietd and Preston. Some parts of the trip 
were covered on foot; thu8« at 0%»atonna there 
WM no train east for several hours bo 1 had tint 
to reach Claremoat, tea miles distant and alio 
footed it from Chatfield to Preston, eiiiteen miles. 
the day bcint? Sunday; the li^lh. In h'orth Da* 
k>ta the ground had frozen and Red river wat 
covered with ice, but in scr there Iflinnesota the 
leather was still mild and pleasant. From Prea- 
ton the remainder of the journey was by the 
cuarrow gauge to Spring Grove and thence ott 
foot to the old home community. Things had 
eiot e^anflTdd much during my absence, but the 
fact that a steam threshicg t^^chite obecrvc^} ie 
the commnnity threEhfrg oats at a time when 
wheat had ceased to be rattled there, seemed to b« 
a peculiar innovation on the old ways of doinif 
things. In Dtcember I returcfd to Larimore* 
My recollection is that fonr inches of snow fell 
just before I cftre away tct fourd ncce io tb# 
Red R'lP^T Valley, 

While absent the raflrctd hsd been opened at 
far west as Bartlett and trains passed back and 
forth on the quartrr-secticn lire of the nortH 
side of my claim, besides cutting cff a little of iti 
northeast corner in makirg the curve where the 
junction of the n^ain and north lines has existed 
since 1884. Thercrd, Vcvcvtr, cid not reiraia 
open long. No enow ferces for shallow cuts had 
been put up, cocee^itteDtly a blizzard which eaue 



«bout the oiiddle of Jaouary caused a blockade 
«ad the eiLteabioa mas Qot a^ain opened until 
spring. Meanwhile a stagre aud loaded teami on 
runners traveled the road» from Larimore as far 
WifSt &3 Devila lake. 

During the fall of 1882 there was au exteoeiTe 
amount of proTirg up on ciaiirs so that owDert 
might leave thena for the whole winter if that 
"WAd the priaeipai motive. A copy of the Lari* 
more Pioneer for October i?» has what amountt 
to aeyen columns of final proof Dotices, the col* 
amns of the paper then being 21 inches io l^^nKth, 
^aeh notice was 1} inch long, in nonpareil type 
<the smallest size used in cou&try papers) and sel 
solid. At the Arnold faroa the three rciiqcish* 
ments that had been hoti:e£te&ded were prcvea 
up by commutation so the fannly could iiicve t» 
Grand Forks for the winter and occupy a houM 
^hat H. F. Arnold had built there. The baildioff* 
on these outl.Ting: quarters were all moved to ths 
farm headquarters late in the fall. In the sprinir 
a return was made to the farm. 

Tte railroad was conrpkted to Devils Lake eity 
July I, 1883, and the mixed trcin grave place to 4 
regular pasfei per train of three cars which in- 
cluded a baggage and railcpr in ere. Ifceie wat 
daily service, a train each way rucrirg between 
Crookston and Devils Lake, the two trains patsing^ 
each other about the noon hour at Larimore, 
stopping for dinner. Travelicg west fcom toieft 
by stage was now ended. 



\ 



i/^GGIHG Y»AftS ifOR TOWM AHD COUNTRY 

BBGINNIMG with tSu year las^. m series of 
iadifferent or lagaring years followed in the 
wake of the busy boom year described ia th# 
preceding section. The railroad had now f on« 
on to Devils Lake and Larimore was no longer iU 
terminus and an outfitting point for the wide 
scope of country lying west. Matters had reached 
the stage vfhere the town would have to depend^ 
from a business point of view, on the merits of 
the surrounding country. There is a certain rati* 
in regard to the volume of business a town or A 
village can transact and the country population 
within a radius of ten or a dozen miles- A town 
aurrounded by small farms is apt to be more 
prosperous than one where a large proportion of 
the land is absorbed in large farms. There had 
been created around Larimore several big farms, 
the physical nature of the country, treeless, level 
or but slightly uneven, where in some localities e 
plow could be run several miles without being 
lifted from the furrow, rendered the creation of 
large farms a possibility. The Elk Valley Farm 
of between eight and nine th^u.3and acres which 
borders the south side of town and railroad njrht 
of way, was the most extensive of all, and ha<| 
been formed by a company of a few men whe 
had capital, by buying up the claims of onginel 
filers on the land after they had proven up. 



ft» rOkCn IttL^hM IK KOETB DUCOTA 

k'hd ch&a^ in boelfiess affairs in Larimore waa 
firet felt by the tuereauiiie claesee owicf to a 
ialUcir off in their trade. U was now seen that 
itx ditabiishioi; business 6nr e in toi^n the matter 
had been soine what overdcne cwicg to illcEcry 
expectations. Omricgr the fipricg of 18^8 a few 
firms dosed up and followed the railroad to Bart- 
iett and Davi]« Lake, Others pulled out later* 
Their vacated buildiogs either reoaictd a loBg 
while empty or in seme cases were rented or aoM 
for other purposes, it tziight be, than trade. 

in proviQ^ up a pre-emptipn, $200 had to h% 
piiid into the U. S. Land Ofiiee for the quarter 
iiection obtained in that way. Then five dollar* 
{!ach was usually paid to the two witneeaes re* 
QUired to testify in regard to the residence of 
the claimant on the land; lautly the iinal proof 
notice run for six weeks in the nearest newspi^ 
per also cost five dollars. The person making final 
proof on his claim quite generally yielded him* 
self a victim to the offers of some Loan and Troal 
Company who furnished him three, four or fiv»^ 
hundred dollars, as the case might be, and took, 
a mortgage on his land at 12 per cent. In addU 
tion to that the borrower was asked to sig* a 
uote for $40 called a "bonus'* which was a steal 
pure and simple. The proving np on homesteada 
by commutation involved a similar process where 
there was borrowing of money in the eaae. The 
consequences of proving np in that way a year 
and a half earlier than was neoeaaary in most 
eases, will be referred to later* 



ehe Arnold far». it has baaa aUtad, eoaiiated 
c-t U40 acres, or aiae cjuarter sections, of which 
i\^XLX were reiioQuiehir.entfi. With the exceptioB 
wf the aouthwcst quarter of Sectkn 10, it would 
hare beea better Qot to have bought the latter, 
but rather to have put the same amount of money 
with other money uo wisely diverted from the 
farm, into permanent farm buildinge and made 
AtK quarter sectione the nucleus for somethiog 
iarffer if desirable. In a new country, if a boooi 
waaues, the price of land is apt to rise to aratiier 
high value; but in gucce^ding years with indiffer* 
ent crops and low prices a reaction ensues and the 
price of land drops to a mere nominal figure. In 
1882 several quarter cecticns were sold around 
Larimore for $3,000 per quarter; a few yeari 
iaier they were considered £8 worth only about 
half that gum. Under the latter conditional 
when the price of land had again fallen to a mere 
nominal value, with judicious management, the 
farm might have been gradually enlarged by 
5>urchase8 without incurring either incettedrcee 
»r mortgaf ea. As it was, the proving up done ia 
1881 and 1882 was after the manner described, se 
that each quarter on which final proof had beea 
made, had a mortgage attached to it. In the 
case of pre-emptions a settler did not have te 
prove up under two years, by which time most 
of them might be supposed to have had the mesBe 
to do so without recourse to money loaners. 

A fact or two should be stated at this pei»t. 
The settlers who came here in the spriaff ef IWt 



bad Ibased their eftleulBtiooa for the future upom 
esiatir.ff eooditioQe as they foucd them- dollar 
wheat and a ff ood yield per ficre at raited fron 
vifiria soil. This was Dot a t&fe basts upon whiek 
to lay plans for the future. In busmett affaira 
there is apt to come the aafordseon, the unknown 
contingency to take account of if thought of at 
ftU« &ir. Copp once stat4sd to the writer that the 
crop of 1881 and price gotten for it had proved to 
hs a detriment to the immigrants of *82 since it 
had giv^n them a falsa view of what was to be 
xh^ real normal conditions of the country. There 
^oema to have existed a mania for proving up 
^£^1719 as early as possible and needlessly in many 
cases. Even at the Arnold farm it wu thought 
tl^at, with a large amount of land on the place 
^tfili unbroken, the mortgages already incurred 
If ould be a light burden, easily cleared up at the 
ai^piratioQ of their five year's time limit, butwttK 
the changing conditions beginning in 1863t it did 
iiot follow that this would be the case. In regard 
to iacurring needless encumbraneee on the farms, 
a9 m&ny did» there should also be taken into ac« 
count the speculative spirit of the times. 

Gopp& Whitney continued en the farm until 
the fall of 1886, renting on shares a part of it 
while H. F. Arnold managed the rest of it so far 
as the whole was then being brought under cpl* 
tivation. During the breaking Ee&eco cf that 
year, 285 acres were turned over and 482 aerea 
of land broken during the three previous yearf 
w^l^e under caltivattoa. Of this latter eereage 



Copp & Whit&ey managred over two hoadrod of 
the same aad probabl? also did most of the sew 
breakiDff of that year. 

The seasoD of 1882 waa not aa gocd for eropt 
as the two preeedinsr yeart had bees. Fart of 
the season was dry and the wheat stalks wer« 
ahorter than usnal. Besides, there maa lome 
ditmaire here and there sustained by hail. The 
^ield ran from fifteen to twenty bushels per a«re 
aad a Uttie larger in exeeptional cases. The 
(threshing around Larimcre was mainly iiniehed 
*>y the end of September, mostly from the shocks 
AS but little stacking was done, and owin^r to the 
conditions mentioned and to the fact that there 
Tiere now more machines to do the work. On the 
Arnold farm the part of it cultivated by H. F« 
Arnold yielded over 4,000 bushels of wheat sod 
2j^,555 bushels 6t oats were obtained from siztj 
acres. The part of the farm managed by Cop^ 
& Whitney yielded S,212 bushels of wheat from 
176 acres and they also obtaiticd 1,276 bushels of 
oats from thirty acres. 

There were as many as ft dozen st^am maehinea 
at work in the vicinity of Larimore that year. 
Most of the engines were nrovcd from farm te 
farm bf t^o span of horses, one span attached te 
ft toagae aad the other in the lead. The tractioa 
ifear engine was coming into use and a few were 
wholly of that kind; then there were others that 
in moving had a span of horses attached to the 
tongue, more to guide the machine than to pull* 
the tractioa gear being the maiQ moving pewer. 



The^ngi&ei that were moved abcui with kariei 
tiad 0ix-iceh tires, tbe wheals cot large, and aa 
with a waffon, the rear ones were the larreat. 

X^ threshiofl: on the Arnold farm that jtar 
waadoQe by Geo. Knause who had bought a bcv 
i»sttfttaad turned his other over to his brothar«ia* 
law« a man namrd Staples. Both men were f ram 
<9a9tern Pennsylvania, Knanss being an ej^periena* 
ed thresher and sought the larger jobs. Staples, 
^ho had gone east, brought from NertharaptoA 
County, Pa., about harvest time, a half douA 
young naa f.>r his thrashing crew. I worked an 
4^i8 oatfit daring September, or until the Tallty 
threshing was completed, after which Staples 
l^alied into the hill country to do a few stack jobs* 
Mr. Knauss now asked me to join bis crew whicH 
was then at what was called the Forgham plaeai 
in Chester township, for he had been cbliacd to 
move eastward to get any October threshing te 
do. We did several jobs on both sides ef tha 
railroad and then quit for the season. 8taple«* 
crewSall went back to Pennsylvania that faU, 
complaining that they had hardly more than made 
enough money la Dakota to cover their railreadi 
fare both ways. 

We shall now add a few notes that pertain te 
the town before closing these principal memeriee 
of the year 1888. Among the buildings ea Third 
atreet was one called the Larimore Leader office. 
This paper was owned by Bennett ^ Mmrphy >f 
the Grand Forks Ptaindealer. Its editor apeot 
much of hl8 time in Gtacd Fcika. Uai^isg tba 



«#ffiee ifi eharee of a boy, and teudtoff up eopy by 
mail for him to work oit. A lawyer located aear 
the oiliee also paseed into it eoiTie fdttoiial writ- 
iQ8:i. OuriQg the sumcier and ai&o in the fall if 
a ghower itopped threshlDg for a day or two, I 
WK8 in the habit of svritioi^ locals and headed 
articles for the paper relative to the fartna west 
^l Larimore and boqq acquired the faeilitj of 
puttiDfiT some of them in type and otherwise help- 
iu}£ out the office boy at ihta ease. The eonomoB 
priaeiples of priDticc: i had understood wbea m 
school bay in Connecticut. 

Karing the drst half of the year a ehanirc was 
d^ected fro OS a village to a ecuuicipal form of 
iroreroaieat. First, on Friday evening January 
&, 188S« a meeting of citizecitt was held to diseaaa 
the matter. During the month a charter waa 
drafted and considered. A confirmation of th« 
ch&rter and city officiaU chosen wasnaxt obtained 
from the territorial legislature. The first offieiat 
qoieeting was held March i5th. The city council 
Hi at first constituted cccEikted of W. N. Raaeli, 
mayor, and six councilmen, as follows; firatward. 
|i. A. Noltimeir and W. M. Scott; second ward« 
O. A. Wilcox and J. F. Stevens; third ward» Sol. 
K. Bailey and J. H. Ballard- A city clerk, mar- 
shall and treasurer were appointed. Later, aide- 
walks were provided for on the business atreets. 
So far as any had been built it had been 9laol( 
walks at the option of owners in front af their 
properties. The three wards originally attabUak* 
^ iiave nerer been iqcrcpt^cd in nutttiter. 



DariDi? thf last half cf the year a fine pablie 
icbooi building was greeted io the center of od« 
of the t«re blocks that had been reserved for pub* 
Uc parposefi. This y^ss iit central bnildinf o| 
the three in which the city fichooU now asseable. 
Meanwhile the school?, assei^bled in Neltimeir'a 
§iall and in the vacated Ballard bnilding that hat 
been mentioned as having occupied ths site el 
4. P. Lord's residence. Three schools eonveBed 
la the new building right after the dose ef the 
Chri^tmad holidays, higher, intermediate and pri* 
mary departments, which was as far as they ad* 
\^anced toward a graded sch&cl »>itcc: for ft 
anmber of years. 

The Fourth of July was ofe»erved in town for 
(he first time in 1833. The gathering was in th« 
i^orthwest quarter of the school block, th« new 
building not being cotnmenced ontil Avgvst« Of 
course the whole block lay vacant, but the stand 
and sale counters were plaeed in the part of it 
mentioned. Besides the school building, fear or 
five residences were built in Larimore that year. 

The most important matter relative to th% 
country eurroucdirg Lariirore etd fcr the year 
1884, was in regard to the wheat crop. It waa 
no failure but the reverse so far as it well eould 
be. There were abundant rains during the grow* 
ing season which in succession came at the right 
tim«; and otherwise weather eonditious wert very 
favoraMe. The result was the productirr ef tli« 
largest crop thus far known in thia sectieo^ lar 



luAOaiWG TEAKd rOR TOWN AND Ct UNTRY 9& 

&a8 like results ever bccR I'uli^ repeated Kere. 
U chanced that crcp ceLcuUi£ mtie vtviusily 
isood fche country ever t|jat ytsr sLd it the {b\\ 
the market price ci v^heai ke{.i dircpplLg ae the 
threBhiag ectfrcu picj^atfitc, inn- tt tclCcctts 
per bushel asc even les& liCitil it (quitltQ th« cost 
ir>f producticn or Grcf ^tii telt^ tltiffcvie, Ihe 
farmers cccn plaice o that with tht pi o£t abundant 
crop they had ever i&ieed hcie the> ccv.c make 
nothing that year atcvc tx|^tcs*& ted that they 
had cropped iheir IsLd Icr iht ttii ht cl elevator 
men and Minneapolis miilerh, instead of for them* 
selves. In short, the wheat cxop et 1384 was re« 
yarded as a calamity to this section of the eoun« 
iry rather than cf try Itttfit to Itid t%ii.ib.. 

At the Arnold. f aim, H. F. Arnold bcLght a 
TfCW threshing outfit that year, the engitie being 
v;hoUy of the tractor kind. He therefore did hia 
own part ci the thies^hicg and a few jobs for 
others outfiide the farm iirrits. His o^n crop 
ftfiiounted to 8,S00 bushels ci vheat fioni 247 
acres and about three thousand bu&bels of oatt 
from sixty acres. Geo. Knaues did the threshinff 
for the part of the farm carried on by Copp & 
Whitney.. From 324 acres ecwn to wheat they 
got 8.9^3 bushels, ai&o 1,672 additional bvebelt 
from land rented of an outside party. They fur» 
ther realized 1,333 buBhels of oats from 31 acr#t 
and 500 bushels of barley, the latter from fif teei 
rented acres en tl-e Ibcn fsct < If ion. 

During part of September I worked with Gea, 
Rnaass' out6t on the large farm of George Bull 



lOO tfosftt "tWiWa m NusTHK Dakota 

located aext cast of of the Mmthews farm. The 
<^utfit started in there early la September. At 
the same time Staples' machine ^ab ranninir on 
the Mathewa farm. The crew of Knauss' outfit 
alept in tents, first spreading on the ground A 
quantity of straw. Previously rain had left the 
{cround somewhat damp and in about ten daya 
I was rendered unable to work owing to a lame 
back. Had I known just what to do for it as I waa 
iiformed a month later, to try a porous plaster* 
i could have resumed work in a few days. As the 
matter stood, i did no more threshing work that 
fall. This I thought to be unfortunate for the 
going wages were ^2.ii) per dcy. After thatyear 
A put in threshing time on the Arnold farm. 

In the breaking season ot the previous yea? 
Opp & Whitney agreed to bresk and backset 
most of the remainder of the prairie turf on m? 
claiia. a little being left on the highway and the 
railroad borders. They wished to keep their 
teams at work and I was not to pay for the work 
done until a crop had been rcturced from the 
breaking which amounted to 115 acres. Theerot» 
fr<sm this new groiird yielc'ed 3,711 bushels oi 
wheat; then there were twenty-five acres of older 
ground which brought the total yield on the 
quarter up to 4,681 bushels. The renters did not 
sell the bulk of the wheat raised by them en the 
fam until the price had dropped to abent the 
lowest fisrure, so that all that I realized from the 
crop of 1884 after their elfin hud tc<B settled 
amottttted to nineteen dollars. 



UkOQlfiQ YBAIW foil TOWK aW» COCTWIRT 101 

ffiarlr itt November I left Larimore for another 
fiait to Houston County, Minn. This time, leav- 
ing on the afternoon of one day, I think I was at 
the home place on the evenicg of the next day, 
though on some tripe by the river route I bad to 
Btop over ni£:ht in UiC^oese. It wae while 1 waa 
on this visit that word was received from Mr. 
Whitney informing: me as to how much was my 
iiue over his breaking and backseting accountc 

In 1883 and 1884 Third street, so far as block* 

iS and 49 were concerned, vied with Towner 

(ivenua as a bcation for business places. No one 

Joolvin? at the present time residences and Meth- 

O'iist church in these blocks with berms. eurbing, 

cement walks and shade trees bordericg the way. 

would now imagine that buch was ever the case. 

On the corner where the Swanson residence now 

is,: stood the First National Bank of Larimore, 

C. G. Wolcott, cashier; next came a clothing store 

then vacant; next a saloon; Mrimre Leader office; 

Elk Valley Farming Co. office; Drug store; Post- 

omce;*Goodhue's naw store on site of Methodist 

church; Harding: building en next corner; Adams* 

jewelry store, a small one-story building; Flour 

and faed dtore; another drug store; Eureka salooa; 

and Baughrnan & Moore hardware store on site 

of the Regan residence. None of these building a 

were joined one to another, while in a few in- 

stances there were vacant lots betweea some of 

them, not utilized at that time. 

During the year under considcraticn a roller 
flour mill was erected by W. C. Lcistikow, owner 



IQ2 kVKTt imhBB IN tlOflTII DAK0T4 

ot a miil at Grafton aod liU father-ia-law, Ante» 
BettiBgeo, on a location goutb of where the Im- 
perial elevater stands. The Uk Valley Farmins; 
eompany, the buaineeamenof Larimorean^ some 
farmers contributed a bonus oi $6,000 toward 
havisiT the mill establiahed here, it was run a 
tew years and was destroyed by 6re on the after- 
noon of March 16» 1888. 

Another event of that year of permanent Im* 
portance to Larimore was thecoustiuction of the 
j^orth and south railroad lines. The old grade of 
wHat had been called the Northern Pacifie Cassei* 
;o^ Branch line was remodeled and steel railt 
)aid from Larimore to Mayville, 28 miles, ^hich 
completed another route to St. Paul by (^sing 
the gap represented by the unironed gif^de. la 
regard to the north lite ccly a tew n ilea of th« 
old grade of 1881 were utilized, the contiruaticn 
of this line to Park River having been relocated 
and new grading done thru McCanna,0rr,Ink8teF 
l^nd other places. Tracklaying began en the south 
line Monday, June 23, and on the north line one 
week later, June bO, lbfc4. In July two tracklay^ 
Ing gangs were f.t work aiiLuit^Eecusly. On the 
north line old iron was laid and the track reached 
the site of Park River, then a wheat field, on the 
23d of August. The place that ferew up there 
remained the terminus of this branch until 18S9, 
during which tiire a mixtd train was rnn en this 
line. On the south line a pa^Eenger train was rv» 
between Larimore and Breckenridge with coiy 
l^ectiona for Mic^eapolia an& ^t, I Uil 



i^OOlHrQ Yls^H^f rCHR YOrVTM ASTD OOVNTEY 10$ 

^f" Bhall Slow pasd on to the year 1885 and give 
^ame notea that concero that year. The fact ha» 
^en fitated thatscKne cf the bisildir^^ m leri* 
£a ore erected ID 1&£:2 \iiere tocatcd wbeie they 
$tood Uiider illusory expectEticte. Scorer or 
AAler a re-adjuatment wae bcund to t^ke plf ct so 
M to briafl: the two largest hotels aad some of the 
business places ibto acccrdacce v^ith coaditiona 
fits ejcistiDfir by the year L885. In fact, the moving 
t>f buildtni^B began in December, I8b4, when L. C« 
^'^eal purchased four lots in Block 50 next north 
ixt what 13 now Bennett's machinery stand and 
^liidVFed the Sherman House to this location where 
U fronted Towner avenue* Here it remained be- 
'woen three and four years when another removal 
wm c-tleeted. During the f^^ime CDontb the Free* 
!:^yterian church was also moved to the site of the 
g>resent church edifice on the corner of Ihjid 
street and Booth avenue. At that time it was 
the only'church building existent in Larimoie, the 
ather three denominationu then represented here 
udng temporary quarters* 

Where Block 63 opposite the city hall borders 
1 owner avenue there were some vacant lota that 
had never been built upon. Certain business 
buildings now beiran to migrate to this loeatioa. 
First the Ballard building that has been mentioii* 
ed, was amoved in there late that seaeoD, beinff 
ti\aced on the fourth lot north of Regan '^s corner. 
In the sprlns: some Third street buildings from 
Block 48 were tnovetf to tfee vacant lots. These 
were the First National Ba&k, one of the !driiir 



194 rOKVt lIBxSa tit K0ST1B DAKCTA 

ttor«i aad L. P. Gocdhae'e ^central merckandiBe 
ctore. A la\xr office that stood oq Booth avenua 
epposite the achooi groucc^ v^&s &Ie& tr.ovcd over 
and placed next 8outh of what for thirty*five 
yaart was the Olcnetead etore. Gradually th« 
othsr buainess places on Ihiird tiiett ^erc vacat* 
ed. The moet Dotable moviDg jcb of all was t% 
transfer the Swain HoU£€ Ucw BIcck b7 to ita 
iS^rese&t site. This v>as acccon^^liehed in July^ 
18)S5. Id those times there were no telephone or 
9tber wires to eocounter aod certain buildinga 
an Booth and Terry avcnuee that would now 
>bfltruct the way on the route taken in ixcving 
the bailuiog, then had no existence. 

A temporary building 120 by 40 feet was pot 
UP th^t year by Portland. N. D. parties to be used 
f a^ a roller skating rink and public gatherings. 
it stood on the two lots made vacant by tht re^ 
o^oyal of the bank building. On the evening o| 
August 8th memorial services ^ere held in this 
structure for General Grant. The building wa« 
also used for ccnvfcticxs. Attcr clout tw« 
years it was taken down and the lumber carted 
away. 

St. Stephens Catholic church was erected that 
year. The Episcopalian ^uild had fitted up tha 
vacated Stevens Brothers store for a temporary 
place of worship and it was also used by the 
Methodist society until the next year when they 
similarly fitted up a vacant ?tcre en Third street. 
A drusr^istfirro, Benham & Davis, erected a new 
drug store adjoining what ip t^ow ^tha WUliainf 



iU^QOiua niAK« wm town Mn» oovn tst 101 

Fliftrtnaey but whick ftt that time was tht Elk 
/alley Bank. A few residences were erected ii| 
town that year. In the middle eighties 6ye er 
fix new houses each year seemed to be needed at 
a time when the number of hotels and busimeta 
places in town were actually decreesirfi:. 

We do not have at hand any further reeerda 
in regrard to crop statistics pertaining to th« 
Arnold farm though such are presumably buried, 
»t least in respect to some cf the paisirg years, 
in the old files of the Larimore Pioneer. The 
wheat crop of that year was below the averagt 
I'leld but prices .were better than in the pteviovf 
year. Farmers with one or two quarter eectioofl 
t>n the £lk Valley flat now had them more or leae 
thoroughly under cultivation and whole quarters 
kad been broken on the Arnold farm. 

in Moraine township where the land was hardet 
to subdue than on the valley flat» less progreaa 
had ;been made. Some quarter secticca wer« 
owned by persons who did not occupy them and 
on which fifteen to forty acres were brckeo. The 
original pettlers were mainly preEcr.t and culti* 
vating from 75 to over 300 acres. There was a% 
that time an Arnold farm of 1.280 acres in tliit 
township owned severallv Ity Geo. P., Charles J., 
Ida K., and John J. Arnold, of Lockport, N. Y, 
Of this amount. 640 acres were in John's Barc» 
hi mself a n^n-resident. Two brothers, Jamea H., 
and A. K. Magoris, of Binphamtrn, N. Y., alse 
owned seven quarters or l,120pcre8of laid ift ike 
BQuthern portion of the tc^cehip. 



The ^«ar 1886 as wetl iig tbe &e?eral yeari that 
.liiceee'ded it wat a eoaticuation ot the cccditicra 
I'^hat begati Co be felt in 188S. U should be said 
e.hat feimo9 in thia /section of country were by 
iRo meaas decidedly hard, like regiccs which now 
aad then have & crop failare, but nevertheless, 
wer^ not satisfactory either to the tradeeoTien in 
town or the farmers m the surrcucdirg country. 
Wheat was the main dependence of the latter 
♦had prices usually ranged from 66 to SO cents per 
Voishel. Most all of the sniaJler farmers as well 
Ri most of those whc had acquired moderately 
large farms had their quarterc mortgaged to 
iftaney loaners—why and wherefcre ha»? already 
?H3eo ststed—and were drifting into the status of 
beiuff the slaves of these mortgagors. Occasional 
haii storms in those times struck here and there 
^heu the wheat was about ready to cut, to tha 
damage of some farmers, more or less, end in a 
few instance?, entirely cleiinirg out others. In 
the latter cases where no heil ineurar ce hsd teett 
earried, ^matters went hsid with tuth perfcre. 

On Friday nieht, June 4, 1886, a frost cutdowa 
the growing wheat, then some four inches high^ 
leaving the fields a black looking waste. But tho 
roots were not irjured and the summer raina 
brought the wheat forward more luxuriantly 
than before. The letter p^rt of the growirf 
season was dry and the wheat gtalVs shorter than 
usual so (hat the threthirg season wound up 
early. The yield was belcw the average but the 
quality of what was raised was generally food. 



Ourinji? the middle eiprhtiea a considerable 
number cf busiiaesjis chfci^i Si tctk | iect. ^cire 
moved from where they were to other and nore 
4o»sr&ble loc&tiot^£ in iovsT. llti^ were acne, 
ti^ew comera Abo Id various traces bdq voc&ticiit 
in ec^nie meascre t&kirig the pUces of others who 
^ad left town, Oq Third street only the Baugh- 
man hardware f<toie» the lii.rckastiltcD acd the 
KIk Vailey Farming Go. building, ueed for a law 
Lvffke, were atili doio^ buamess. Of other build* 
ings there th%t had cot been moved out, several 
t^ere empty while one waa fitted up in 1886 for a 
place of worship by the Methodist society. One 
<#thcr, used by the Elk Valley Cornet band of 
i|xat time for a practice room, was burned down. 

There were in existence in the spring of 188> 
sine business places on Main or Second street, 
IfrGQtirg toward the two reserved btccks» and 
©ccup>irig SL position ih bkcks 76fccd 77 from the 
Lutheran church corner to Willians Fhsriracy, 
Of these placee two wtve sftkciDs, ihite were 
feed, grocery and general merchandise stores; 
the Lsrimore Pioneer cfFice; a drugstore; a hotel; 
and a hardware store on the corner where th« 
Lutheran chutch bow standee At the dose of 
1886 only the Pioneer cflfice and the hotel were 
doing business and the latter was torn down the 
next year. Fcur or 6ve ot the buildings noted 
were moved to Towner avenue which was Qow 
becomiogr the general busin^fes qijartcr ot tcmSo 



vn. 

THK LATB ElGHTtES AKD EARLY NINCTIES 

'T^HE principal events for tke year U€7, t© far 
•*- ai Larimore was specially concerBcd, were, 
first, th€ establiehmeDt here of aoire sort of rail* 
road division keadquartere; ecccrd, the inetiti:t« 
intr of what were called tournaonente, these beinf 
held annually for several Tears; ard third, a fir* 
late in the fall which destroyed a to^ of bufinesa 
buildingrs on Towner avenue. Otherwise there 
<»nsued various minor changes or nnutaticLs ia 
relation to business matters, churches and public 
affairs in general. 

The division force, which was rather limited, 
(iame about the first of February and established 
itself in the depot and part of the freigrhthouse* 
a room being partitioned off. Altho the division 
headquarters rcnrained here until 169'4it seetred 
never to have made any particular difference for 
the betterment of the town, The Harding build« 
ing on Third street, which stood rnpty, was 
moved back from the sidewalk and remodel«| 
into a residence for Cept C. h- Jetks, ttperic* 
tendent of the division. F. p. Hughes of Arvilla, 
who had taken up his residence in tcwn in ftdarch* 
bought the vacated Then: as furcittre store (yp. 
76I-77) ai^d moved it to a position north of th€ 
depot where it wfie remodeled into a railroad 
eating house. (At this writing the building ttUt 
stands there« empty for many y dsrs,.ia ft rviasvi 



«oaditio&p ready to be tore down.) Dadley H. 
Heresy, of Arvilla, bought four lots in block S2« 
^ear the depot, ioteadicg to move a large hotel; 
there from Arvilla, but it proved to be too heavy 
tiM: the appIi&EieeB vecd eo ilc pic jrct wai gives 
loip. but the Best year the Sherman House wa« 
moved to these lots, this being its third loeatioD. 
^even houses were luilt in Laiinicie in 1^86, bui 
there wer^ only three or four erected during thia 
i^rst year oi ihfi division hefidquarteri. 

There was at that time £n engine houee herein 
wooden structure with three staDs for loeomo- 
iHves, but it was never tDlarged- It stood east 
Kf.f the present roundhouse and south of the most 
western part of town. A long eo&l shed tl^e» 
occupied the south side of the track whert tkt 
curve occurs opposite block )»7. That spring l^ 
number of supply trains were running, engaged 
\fx transpoi^ting railroad materials to Miaot t^t 
an extension of the road to Great Falls that year<< 
$ixty-pound steel rails were laid from Grand 
li'orks to Larimore in 1886 and this work wa« 
continued to Devils Lake in 1887. The steel rails 
displaced old wrought iron ones which had bees 
used elsewhere before being iilaid in Dakota m 
the early eighties. Heavier loeonnotiveSp called 
moguls, could now be used on tbt- road. 

In the latter part of May, 1887, the writer 
went out to the Nelson County colony location to 
do some work there. I had not been at the set« 
tlement near the north end of the lake since the 
early part of Septen^l^cr* 19§2. but had wuAt s 



brief vfsit {n July, 1883, to those settled arount 
tile southern end of the take while retarniog from 
a trij» out to Stump lake' About four yearg had 
therefore passed since I bad been at Loretta lake» 
Those who had been settled there had Iodst since 
itiroven up and were grone. The lands of the St. 
Louis part of the celery had been divided be* 
tv^een H. F, Arnold and his uoele. Mr. Steer* 
had, I think, srott^'n rid of his portion of the land 
for what it ^ould brin^ and the same may be said 
of those around the southern end of the lake. At 
that paint the fields ence cultivated had rererted 
back to prairie and i onl.T saw the ruins of one of 
the cabins. Of the four houses at the northern 
«nd of the lake only one remained occupied by a 
rentv-tr who was putting in a crop of barley and 
had two men at work for him. The other houaea 
had either been torn down by settlers for fuel or 
9o!d and moved away. From this location to 
Michigan City, a distance of about five mileai, 
there were no houeeg nor any ether cultivated 
fields, mainly owing: to the low price of wheat ia 
those years. K. F. Arnold retained his portion 
cif the land, 240 acres, into the next decade when 
he turced it over to a Michigan City banker ta 
whom it was mortgragfed. The outlook may hava 
b^en promising: enough in the eprirs: of 18£2» 
but judged by the final outcome, this colony pro- 
ject ought never to have been undertaken at all* 
since it entailed financial less to ell concerned. 

The people of Larimore made no effort to e^U 
ejbrate the Fourth of July in 1687, they hf ard a 



t&\i CAtlft aKOH vma Kf*t) EiHSLY KnOETIBS 111 

little later tbat other towos in the county had 
ffeaerally done bo. The businees n en and come 
others tbereopcn grot up ^hst v^Bh called a tour* 
aament which included horse racing and other 
attractions. A race track was provided on vacant 
irround close to the northwest (.art of town. 
Here the first tourc&oient was observed during 
two day^, July 19 and 20. Ihere was no fencing 
off of an enclosure, every tbirg teiRg in the c|>ea 
except a ^rand stand* Besides the Larimore band 
one from Grand Forks was in attendance. Co« 
object of these tournaments, which were held 
annually until about 1892, was to bring into towa 
the people from the surroi^rdicg coi^ntry. 

During that year the Methodist society ereeted 
a neat looking church on the corner site where 
the present church now stands. Their temporary 
place of worship was a two-story building witli 
living rooms above, but the whole was now re* 
modeled into a parsonage, having been maved 
back from the plank sidewalk of that time. The 
church was a wooden structure and coat $1,488« 
It was dedicated January 1, 1888. 

The wheat crop that year was a fairly good 0|s« 
as there had been abundant rains at the right 
season and prices vere a little r ere fatifftctcry 
than for the previous three years. 0. H. PbiHips, 
a dealer in farm machinery, stated that he knew 
of sixty steam threshing outfits being used within 
fifteen miles arrurd Larimore. The burniag of 
strpw in field thrffhitpwre then cuile fercral, 
atasking of wheat for that work baviog ceased. 



112 tOKtt t8Alu$ IN (<0R1» DAKOTA 

In hC«¥cint>ef th% writer made a third trip ta^ 
the old home eommunity ir Boutheaeterc Miccc* 
sota. While down there a ceighbcr icfctmcd m^ 
that iie had ieen in a paper an account af quite ft 
f^rc at LarifDore. When bocd after, I could get 
the paper, the location and extent cf the fire was 
rendered plain, Ali of the buildicge that had 
b^en moved to block 63 from Third street and 
elsewhere were deFtM>ici ^^hile those at the 
bioek camera that had been built in 1882 where 
they stood, escaped the flames. The fire broke 
'>.it io a bakery, the farmer Goodhue store, be- 
tween two and three o'clock Sunday morniDg, 
November 20th. Only a hand eoirine was avail* 
ah<c at that time and this was found to be frozcA 
up and had to be thawed out, hence the fire got 
cidder headway. The fcllowirg places were de« 
slroyed in ordf*r from north to south: Law office 
of J, Stewart WcUa; Mor.v drvg store; Bocdelid 
bakery; First National Bank; barber shop of !£• 
Marment; the Ballard building; and a small ware« 
nouse of KeifFer& Regan in the rear of thellatter. 
The law office und bank were rebuilt that year; 
later three disused store buildings were moved 
in there, to-wit, the former Baughman hardware 
store, the once Stevens Bros, store and the vacate 
ed drug store that stood on Main street. Lastly 
the Wisner residence was built there in 1894. 

The wheat receipts for the mill and elevators 
for 1887 were reckoned Pt 890,000 buehelp. The 
fire losses were reckoned to aix.cont to $20,€&0, 
partially insured. 



For the Qext two yeart there wai oot much in 
iho way of «h&iiffe!pertatniDe: to town. Places of 
busisesB were aow alaioct cDtirely coDfiocd to 
Towner avenae. Tbe nine hotels of former years 
bad dwindled down to three or four. Alocg m 
tbe middle eighties the circus began eomiaff t# 
XiSrimore, but these shows were of the lesser kiad 
BQcb as take in moderate sized towns. There 
i^as no available hall here then, hence traTeliair 
Uoupes could Rive no cntertsinnrietits hire, but 
Charches were occasionally used for lectures. 

Id tlie summer of 1388 the writer made a trip 
oat to Minot. The place was then two years old« 
Slot cfuite the size that Laritnore is now and there 
were only two hotels there. The tcmn mainly 
depended on tbe railroad for support for owiof 
io drougth years in thi^t part ci Dakcta thera 
liad been little or no agricultural development ia 
that rcirion. Within the loup of Mcvfe ri^cir 
there were no real villages as yet, only three or 
f our statlonss on the railroad. 1 walked oot of 
town three miles to view the high railroad trestle 
acroog Gassmen coulee, where this opens into 
Mouse river valley and that was as far west as ( 
fver g )t. Returning to town on the bottom laad 
of the valley, it was observed that settlers alocfl: 
the river were living: in log: eabing. 

The year 1888 was a frost year for wheat, rain« 
ing such fielde as had been sown late. There wae 
frost August 9th and 16th affecting some loealtiea 
but not others. Crly hcilf rf iry quarter was ii| 
wheat that year, the re$t being .aader sammeF 



fallow, and I tost my ghare of the crop, the eoet 
»f seed and the cost of putting: it in the groui^d^ 
also any work for that season done on the faici, 
ftQ estimated total of $700, which was quite a let 
hack. By this time what was the headqaartera 
i>f the farm around the center of Section 10 bad 
become fairly well provided with buildicgt, a 
lar^e barn, a granary and a machine shed haTi&f 
been built, while part of the old cabin ivas new 
used for a blacksmith shop. 

In 1889 a new elevator called the St. Anthony 
& Dakota was built here. Had thiaelevator been 
In ezistenee when the mill burred dcwn it wcvld 
probably have been destroyed also as the flames 
were partially in that direction. The elevator 
referred to is now the Imperial, after beiofi: ra« 
built over and much ealarged' 

A Lutheran church society was now organized 
in l,arimore but as neither this society nor the 
Episcopalian then had any church building:, they 
were accorded the use of tho£e of theHethodiit 
and Presbyterian societies. 

VhM^ far the people who had made this section 
their homes had been living under a territorial 
form of government. There was really HttU 
difference between living under a state govern- 
ment and the other and so far as businees affairs 
and the ordinary life of the people were concern^ 
ed no difference was apparent. What real differ^ 
ea^e existed, was in the main political. The new 
state adopted a Dnhibition constitution and tha 
last of the saloons disappeared from Lariaarc. 



VH& LATC EJGHTTGB A£*'D SaRLY NINlTXeS 118 

The govfiTntnent census for U£0 tbc^c d that 
Itariraore had 5SS icViElitirU— a cere ^illjge 
population-~and probabl}' tbat ^es ti lew in 
number as the place ever got. PresuiKabis there 
were over six hundred peop^ in town daring the 
preceding wi&ter, but in the spring bcoic had 
left town for the farms. 

That was the year in which the city hall Wftt 
hxxWt. The question had been raised by the Lar- 
imors Pioneer whether block 64 had been held in 
feaerve or not for some public biiildirg and it 
was understood that the Klk Valley FsiCiitg Co. 
would deed it to the city if one was erected io 
the block. The city council held their mcttiigft 
in the Elk Valley office then still remaining on 
Third street, and this Ucy tock the matter in 
hand, discussing the advisability cf Ivildirg & 
city hall. On May 2 1st a special election wa© 
held relative to isei^in^t bends in the eum of $5,500 
to erect the proposed htilcitg fcit there were 
only a few opposing votes east. Farners with 
their teams contributed woi k by hauling stone for 
the foundaticn and bri«li ard Lvilciitfc materials. 
Work on the building began in June, progresee^ 
thru the summer acd f&ll ttd it v&s dccicettd 
by a ball December 19th, The building measures 
86 by 40 feet, with fire engine and other roome 
below and hall and stage for pv^Uic (nteitaic* 
men Is above. This was the fi«rst brick building 
erected in Larimore. 

The Larimore Pioneer ie nearly as old as thm 
town itself, it was st&itcd in February^ US2, 



hy Geo. B. Winship, of the Grand Forks Hert Id. 
and Warren M. SzoU ox the same cffice- The 
first issue, dated February 21, lfcfc2, y^ki priLUd 
at the Herald office, bu; th^^ laext fourteen is^ucs^ 
were printed in a kuikirg cia lie til ttitti to 
Ihe aotttbeast of the Elk Valley Bank. Mr. gcott 
«rectad a two-stoiy Luiicitig ex h. coiter ti K^io 
•Weet and I^^rry avenue ^hich web cccciifd 
abaut the first of June. The Ic^er Etcry ^tie 
rented a while hy a dry goods firm acd the hih 
Valley Eaoic began huoinei^s there in IBh^, Ere 
long Wic3hip sold his int^reet in the Pioneer to^ 
Mills Church. By the year 1886 a remcval had 
been made to the lower story of the buildirir. 
About 1886 Scott and Church di\^ided their inter* 
ests, 3;::>U redainiog the paper and Chureh tak« 
i&g the building. In 18^7 the clfice was moved 
i.o the second story of » lairge wooden buildinir 
an Towner avenue ir> bl&ck 77c In Augmat, 1888^ 
Seott sold the Ploreer to M. M- Miller and ia 
October, ifefcO, it wau puxtbaEeo ty H. F. Arnold 
who had entered state politics and been tlected 
senator for the fifth district. 

{m, p. Mason located at the correr r^f r the de- 
pot in the year ucdcr eonsidcraticUp buying oat 
$L small restaurei t ehei rj f stsblifhed there for 
several years. Thie place he later enlarged and 
being a native of Chic, it hae bcfc ctJl*d the 
Buckeye now these thirty years, though theewner 
at tivnes has been out of it, hotel keeping and la 
the earoentering line. It chances te betbeftcaV" 
est business site to the depot. 



It was in the summer of 1891, I thiDk, that I 
had occssbn to cross Moraine to^Behip item, 
ftear its western border, follovic^ tie road that 
passes directly west fuir tc? n ttd en fecticn 
lines entirely thru the town&hip, Withir the 
limits of the township 1 did cct pEss a single 
dwelling, all cfibirs cr httFte of any sort once 
i.i proximity to the road having disappfBied; 
Qor did the road itself appear to be much travel- 
ed, bvit had begun to resemble the early prairie 
wsjjon trails that preceded section line roads. 
Oa either side the land in places showed signs ©f 
former cultivation, but the fields had reverted to 
grass and weeds. The settlers alorg this road 
had in the main pcsseftsed single quarters only 
&r>A these had been abfiidcncd to mcrtgfgcrs, 
the former owners hsvirg either moved to town 
or left the country. This was a consequence of 
proviug up on loaned money, (receivirg by loan 
more than was needed for that purpcie) an4 
paying I'd per cent intercRt. It would have been 
better, in many cases, where continuous resi- 
dence on a claim ensued, to have tskcn them 119 
fi3 homesteads instead of pre-emptions. The 
papulation of Moraine towcfbip by the ceneus of 
1890 was 64 inhabitants, 1 also Ffw ex tcitic ta 
similar to those referred to, in the southern part 
of Niagara townehip slrcut t^it tine. 

There was a fair average wheat crop that yeir 
some fields producirg freer twecty to twenty- 
five bushels per acre. By this time ie threshicr 
ft convenient method of dispositff of the straw 



lid ffv&ti tHAJia ii% MOtna Dakota 

^&d bnaa daviged. U coasisted of two ilide ran<» 
aars, a cross piece 8 by 4 inchos and tea feet i» 
loagth in which upri&ht piLS 6cir.e two feet hiirli 
x'7«^re set about two feet apart. Ihie rig called 
Che "straw bucker" waE drawn back and forth 
by tnro horses ridden by boys who kept ten or 
tceeive feet apart. The backer did not have to 
^e turned around as there were rings at one end 
of the ropes, by which the rig was palled, aad 
these slipped along on iron reds attathed to the 
outward sides of the runners. The palling ropes 
were as much as twelve feet in length. By this 
^rraai^ecnent the straw was dragged, a load at 
a tii-ne, to the right and left of the machine and 
left ageld for burning in long huminocky ricks. 
Oae of the riders had to pass beneath the straw 
stacker, a dusty place, but oeeasiocally the boys 
changed sides. The ccginee were usnally straw 
barners and when needed the boys delivered a 
load close to the rear of the engine by riding in 
on both sides of it- 
It will be our purpose to make some mentloB 
of all of the weekly newspapers ever published 
in Larimore, of which there h&ve been five sack 
undertakings. The Larimore Leader never sor* 
vived the year 1884. On November 7, 1891, E. E. 
Sloniker, who had been foreman of the Pioneer 
office, issued the first nvnrber of e paper called 
th? Lariii'ire Times and in a building on the site 
of the Cn-operative store. In about two moathe 
the outfit was moved to Morthwood and merged 
with a local paper there* 



tiLa LJiT^ ia(£icsn2e» IWM» SIAEtLY MINimES 11& 

there were bui»i&e!BSi chiuDgea taking piece id 
town each year including chsngea in regard to 
tbe ministry over the several churches. Now that 
the town had a city haii occagiocei ectertain- 
ments by traveling troupes could be presented 
in it, also whatevet wae gotten up by home tal« 
ent. There was a hotel on the ccrLer of Front 
street and Terry avecue, one block north of th« 
depot, called the Commercial House and whick 
had beea built in the spricg of 1S82. It had been 
closed for some time, but in 18^2 it ^ss again 
{Opened by Theodore Johnson and has ever since 
been called the Johnson House. In August of that 
year the first graveling cf cur streets ^as dene. 

The Larimore Pitnecr had tew been n^cvtd 
from the upper story of the building in which it 
wai published to the lov^er one. The printing of 
the paper thus far bed been on a hand press, but 
In 1892 a cylinder presa was purcbsfcd en which 
the paper is still being printed. The south half 
of the wooden block in which the Pioneer was 
printed was purchseed by H. F. Arnold during 
the early nineties and Capt. Jerks having moved 
to Grand Forks when the division of 1887-92 left 
Larimore, the residence on Third street Taclited 
by him was also bought. 

In 1892 a new and heavier set of steel rails 
were laid f"»r the railroad bo that locemctlves of 
heavier v^ight tha.^ moguls could be used on the 
main line. In 1890 this system tock the rf nre of 
th^ Great Northern Railroed erd thru ccrcccticQ 
with Seattle was established Jaoudiy 6, 18i»'8. 



Iq 1893, which was the year that the World*^ 
Fair, as it was called, was held at Chicago, LarU 
mare beg^ao showi&g riprs of picking v>p a little* 
?fi>ai 1887 to 1892 scarcely any new reeidencca 
^^ere added to those existiiig in to^n, butdurirg 
the 3ummer J. B. Streeter Jr., of the First Na- 
tional Bank, took in hand the remainder of the 
disused business buildings on Third St., and had 
them remodeled into dwelling htuEeE. The old 
<8!ureka saloon was moved a block farther east for 
thesaaae purpore. in thcte times GWtJlitgt %tit 
scattering in the west part of to^n, there Icii-if 
half blocks and even v^hcle blockB ccnttmirg 
aaiy one, two or three houses and siitilar con* 
ditioQ3 prevailed in the east end. Theresas then 
ft<*.arceiy anything north of the blocks thtt bcrder 
on Third street. 

A notable event fcr Lsrinnore iu IfSS WM the 
visit of the World's Fair Foreign Ccn^mhB'itnejB 
who came to study sgricuUvial ctiiitifie *t 
typical places In the Noithwest. lYty csirc to 
Larimore by special train August 29tb and ^«re 
taken to the Elk Valley Farm in carriages. Her« 
thay witnessed a harvest scene, f or ty*two binders 
bain? at work in one large field. At the Cweft 
or Kentucky farm a lunch was served in • tent, 
N. G. Larimore, Gov. S^hortficge atd invited 
guests being present. 

The wheat crop of that year vbb e ofieldtrc^ cs 
b«ing a little below the average, gcing geteially 
15 to 17 bttflhels per acre. There had been more 
than the as«ftl acDomnt of acpw the prevloua 



winter, ti'^uch Incicatcd ty etorn s an4 drifU 
toward the latter part of it The month of April 
*afl almost coBEtiiSitb clcic-n &o thni tie enow 
did cot wholly meK off uiitil the last ^bJ'E of the 
month. Hence farmeiF vexc late in getting in 
their crcps that year. 

Daring the year Fricker & W<ich erected s 
fltnall roller flour mill on the 8ite<>f the one that 
had been burned dcww m 1888. Ihe first named 
party was a practical mill man, the other a well- 
!taowii physician of Larimore. As first built tk« 
mill measured 42 by 5i6 feet, three storice high 
vith a one-story wir.p 4€ by 30 feet. In after 
times the mill way much ealarffed, changed own- 
ership, and was irregtiljirly rvn. It tht end. th« 
machinery of the ir,iii havirg been mcved t^ 
Moitana, it was torn do^n severs! yesreego. 

Th^ tendency of large faroQS to keep down any 
town surrounded by thefr*. by reapcn ef di»in- 
Iflhing the trade of the country trifcutfiiy t©6tcfc 
places, has been rcfen^d tc •}K pirnr^« ^» 
that where a family resides upon each qwter 
section CT tvr it givet a Isigfr pcrnlrtirr f 
the said triLutery arce <f ccvrtn ^i^ »tich of 
what each perFonceecs the tracefntn svpply* 
The lack of a larger population in the eouat^ 
surrounding iBrin-cie.. ^Wh %ejy little wasfct 
land, was particulsrly JTeit duritg the yittr thai 
hare been passed in rf'vicw !n 18^0 Lari»ore 
township had only 110 pc pclstir n. Ccntiist tfcii 
with certain agricultural tcwnships in sccthef st* 
ern MinneeoU. a land of ifcail faifcs, gi;d witfc 



^aasiderable waste l&cd inclndirg tin Icr tra« t^, 
yet showing a popuUticii frtir 4ti> to ever a 
thousand. The to?fDfihip froTr? ^hich the wiiitr 
came, which was puiHJy hu figricultursl ote, had 
i.087 inhabitaota bj the census of 18^0. 

Oace in a conyersation with Mr. Kitffer in re- 
gard to the foregoing subject, he referred to the 
Mk. Valley Farm in particular, advancing the 
opinion that so far as beoefittiDg the town in a 
mercantile way the land coinprited in the farm 
jnight as ^eli have been a morass, for, he said, 
IhQ eonpany had their supplies shipped to them 
Tiy tha ear load aod bought little in town. He 
admitted that some trade was derived from the 
employees on the big farm. But on the eupposi- 
tion that tne lesser sized Large farms did their 
trading in town, still, the principle iVti it is the 
population on many farms collectively that build 
up the country market towns, holds good. Thii 
eannot be the case where large areas cf the land 
are absorbed into big farms. We herewith giT© 
& statement regarding the acreage of a number 
of large farms withiu a dozen miles of Liirimor* 
aceording to a plat book published in l&iS* 

Elk VA.LLBY FA.&U. 

LartTiore Township — 

Et?bteen qvarrer fectloos, *,%$0 acres; 
ArviM* Township— 

2, 7^0 acres. 
HeJit'^n Townshio— <>i^ acres. 
A»<»i Trtwnsh»p— f 407 acres. 
Praec l>iras^ip— i6e aerei. TpJ^ %»f lfm> 



ABVILL4 ToWNSHIf. 

New York Farn, J. H. Mfttbewe, i,a8o acrei. Algo^ 5^ 
acres ia Avon towBihip. Toui, 1,840 acres. 
Bitil ft Ramsdabl, 1,280 acres. 
Dadltj H. Hvsrsej, 3,066 acres. (Crystal SprisKa Fars.| 

Clm Gaovs TowNSHir. 

T. S. Sdisoo, 1,600 acres. Includes 480 acres iBarka4 
«*T. S. Sdisoa Jk J. B. iStreetcr Jr." 
Simon A. McCanna, I«I44 acres. 
Nelson & Parcel!, 1,760 acres. 
C. L. Grabcr, 800 acres. Hiraisa Spade, 640 aer«a> 

MotAiNE Township. 

Farna owned setefaily by John J., George P., CbariM G.. 
aad Ida H. Arnold, of Lockport, N. Y., 1,249 acres. 
Jasses H. & A. E. M&goris, 800 acres. 

Arnold Faroa cf La^icsore tc'woship, owned levtratly bf 
Horace F., Ellery C, Henry V., Addie L., and Eava C. 
Arnold, x,6oo acres. 

The sixteen hundred acres ccnrrilfcd iu the 
Arnold farm in 1893 did not include the north* 
east quarter Section 15 as that had been traded 
to the 5lk Valley Farminir Company ia 1885, 
their lands already bordering: it on three lidea. 
What haa been mentioned as the Them pecc claim 
bad been purchased, also another quarter teetiom 
at the foot of the hills, its south aide bordering 
the Moraine township road. 

in th^ Utter part of March, while winter still 
held sway, I had a severe attack of ecitc kird cf 
stATDach complaint frcn which I had oeeasioBall^ 
auffered for g ;rear or inor« |)Mt. Hitherto it 



VZi l^tm* YBAM^ IJf tiOmU DAKOTA 

had been of the nature of sudden brief attacks, 
lasting only amonrjent or t^c, sifter v^hicb I feife 
AS usual except for scn:e mcmecti^iy ^erVtet^, 
But I now experienced a diftercct fcim cf the 
complaint and after a hcrrio night, alcne in my 
cabin, I managed to reach thru the enm the 
haaiqiiarters of the farm a half mile south. Dr. 
Rounsevell thought that 1 hsd little chance of re- 
covery, my vitality had sunk so low, but 1 pulled 
•:hra it nevertheless. 1 attributed the ccaplsict 
t3 smoking, but the doctor said it ^£b gtetralgift 
induced by the use cf dry crackers insteEd of 
bread— that it was a painful, but tct tacin iViy 
a daDjjerous complaint if its ceuEe was ren:cved. 
i was confined to the house ever a n^cnth, Itt 
could have been out two weeks earlier hac weath- 
er conditions in April {ermitttd. After the ye^r 
1896 i did not require the services of & ph^sici^n 
again for nearly twenty years. 

Dr. Rounsevell advised ne to n:cve into town. 
Having: owned some property there since 1885, 
I built a small house on it in the warm season of 
1893 and p-.it fn the threshing: pericd en the Ar- 
nold farm. The last week of October was spent 
in Chicagro and I cheered to be theie at the time 
that the mayor of the city. Carter Harrison, was 
asgassinated. I had attended the Centennial 
Exposition in 1876 and thought then that cothirar 
of the «*ame ««ort in this country would exceed it 
durinc: the rpnsirf'er cf the century. But tH« 
exper^t^ntion H'd net prrf rr to be wholly realised 
in comparison with thu? World's Fair. 



t^E LaTK KKOtfTilW AN© KaRLY NINBTIB3 125 

During: the nineties there were feverel C'iffcr- 
eat foremen at the Picnt^er rfiice eacl remainins: 
as much as two years. Often youtg nr>en in sith 
positions aspire to run a paper tKtn^seUct^ seme 
day. Another foreman cf the cfrce tanLtc V^iU 
liam Miller^ after vacating his position, started 
a paper in town called the Larimore Graphic, 
the first issue of which was publiehcd b« j u n I € r 
7, 1893. There were not enough people in town 
and surrounding country successfully tc support 
two local papers, hence after about one year's 
experience Miller DQoved to Minnewaukan. 

Most of the months cf Lecen bcr trd Jf rtsry 
were of that sunny aad mild sort of weather that 
occasionally prevails in this latitude, a prolong- 
ing of late fall conditions into the wint» months 
9wing to the prevalence of frut^f r]> winds and 
the ground bare of sncw. Weather conditions 
of that kind at that season of the year shortcQ 
the actual winter which if spt tc set ir. later. A, 
similar state of weather conditions prevailed one 
winter in the late eighties, tbf re being only six 
weeks of snow and that melted off about the first 
of March. 

In April, 1894, a notable railrcad strike oceurr» 
ed on the Great Northern which hsieo eighteea 
days. It was said that for eleven days of this 
Interval no train passed thru Larircre. Peirjr 
out rear the track ere evfrirg, the writer ftw 
a nassenger train from the wept quietly enter 
town with:>ut sounding bell or whistle for the 
crossing or on approaching tke depot. Tuntg 



It9 irVKTt YKA&f IM m>fiiTH DAKOTA 

the coDtinuRDce of the Lti:ike trail frcm the ce^t 
was brought op from Grsvd ForVB by a lailrrt^ 
velocipede and a horse iesn). On M«y 8d t leitle* 
.meat was reachod by crbitieticD, trd in tfce 
p'/ening the railroad iren of Lariirtore celcbtftfd 
the end of theetriki^ with powder ttd acvila fed 
a bonfire. During the yf ar such divisicn force 
as had by that time been located here were grad* 
i$Uy transferred to Grand Forks. At that tim« 
ihe force consisted of ab&ut twenty ttco, the 
t.ii3t of #hom left November 19th. 

What is now the North Dakota Co&ferenec of 
ih\3 Methodist Church beg:aQ as a mission confer- 
ence in 1886 with jjbout thirty menrbere atd twe 
rear» later was recognized as a full ccclcrcikce. 
During: the early eighties the Methodist churches 
i»f eastern North Dakota v ere UEccr the juris* 
^ictios) of the Mime^Fota Cocffierce. In May, 
18^5. &he North Dakota Confeiefcce held tl»** 
sessions in the city hall, Larimcre, this haTing 
been the only occasion that this city has ever beea 
chosen for the annual meetis^s* of this confercccis. 
Uaually larger places fcsve beet prefer?* d. 

There were now six church societies ia towa, 
to wit, Roman CafhoHc, Prcfibyterien, Methodist, 
EpiBcopelisr, Lutbercn ard Free Methodist. 
The Norweflrian Luth&r£!n srciety ocly, as yei, 
had no church buildirp, bvt were acccrc'ed the 
use of other places of wcrfbip. At f iJt « »iris* 
ter from Northwocd preafhed ccce a trcrtK 
The Bpiscopaliac puilc built A cknrch in Block 
66 in i^n. The Free MetkodiaU purckaaed ia 



Ta« LAT8 ElQUnits ^ND fc^AJtLt NIKKTIBS 12? 

1892 the buildmr in Block 77 that W. M. Scott 
bviilt for & priDtiog office (p. 116) «iid they fitted 
up most of the lower 8toc> && a place io which t« 
bold services, 

la those years Larimoie \%'&8 active ic a locial 
w^y, tocludicg: various foroaa of eatertaiDDii-iit« 
The towa h&d become quite a resort for teachers 
meetings and for hcldicg miccr ccDveEitic(>£. 
There w^ere oceasiooai chureh suppers as now, 
&ad lectures in some of the churches^ Theatrical 
and minstrel troupes cr n e at itteiv^ls ttd gave 
i^atertainnjents in the hail scd ir.cre rarely hcBie 
talent presented somethirg there. Ihtre had 
been balls and banquets annuallj ever sirce the 
town had started.' In each of those later yeart 
*ne or two social clubs ^ere in e^ciftcrce ecd 
the school, whi«h had tsken a graded foriK, had 
Us literary society, 7 he Ifecicf aleo had their aid 
Bocieties in connection with church \\ork. A few 
fraternal orders, such as the Masonic and the 
O 1 1 Felloes, were represented here and a Grand 
Army post was not lacking, under whose auspicca 
Decoration dfiy began to be observed. It waa 
in 18y5 that the bicycle bfptEi te be in evidence 
\n Larimore. The town was now on the eve of 
anither start forward in material iBPprr vcnreEt 
o^in? te railroad icfiueccee lasticig ficv Ui6 to 
X907. 



vm. 

RAfLROAD Dr/ISIO?^ TIMES 

AX thig point* before speakin? of the priaeipil 
characteristics of what are remembered as the 
railroad division days, when for about eleven years 
the Dakota Divisiia of the Great Northern Rail- 
way had ita heaiq lartars located here, wa will 
revert back to what were our ooportunities of 
procuring sro'^l r^alin,^ matter after settling itk 
North Dakota. To my nothini? of newspapers, 
mat^azines ani namphlets, enougrh books had been 
read before conriint? to Dakota pr^<;amably to make 
ft small library whi?h in^lalej a nimber on Civil 
war topic?. Altho cm^ii^rable in the way of fic» 
tion was read frirn S>yh'iod no vard, our sreneral 
preference wa? for hi^torit^al, and certain classes of 
scientific work?, a^ w^il p.g ofher? containing: useful 
Information. pro(?ureahle on^y at intervals. 

While livmtf out a*^ the fa^m ii the ei^rhties and 
earlv nineties, a number of books were loaned to 
us without the a<*kinflf. amon^r which were such 
work? n? O^een'^ ••t^i<?»-r>pv of th<* Enfirli*»h People**; 
plain**'? "'^'Vf^nty Y^ar? in Concrress"; Logan'a 
•*Hi«i*'orv of t:he Great r->n?Diracy" and Stanley's 
•*Tr» Dn»*k«<'t Afn<^!4". Wf» were also loaned th& 
Centnry Mao^azine at the f.^m^ that nublication was 
r^inniiT ?t? Cvil war «t^»nV9 ani r>'^»"t? of Hav and 
Ki^olav*? '*^^raha'n Lincoln: A. History." thialast 
b^inqc <»^ntin'i<»'1 throncrh n vear's niimSers of the 
magazine. )^n those yaars too we oceasionally had 



^>kiT V$AhS IM NORTH DAKOTA 120 

books from the school library to take oat to the 
farm and read at leisure. This was io the early 
Dineties, the library, which had been started in 
1889, havinsr in its earlier years a printed catalog:. 

When 1 came to North Dakota I had already 
beg:un to take a deep interest in the subject of 
Prehistoric Man then developing: more rapidly than 
Sn previous years. I had made the statement in 
print about the year 1879 that in course of time 
this subject would bejorin to find some reeogrnition in 
the school books and in the new century I begran to 
see the statement verified as much as could be ex- 
pected in that clas3 of works. Two other subjecta 
In which considerable interest was taken at that 
time and ?ifterward were Historical Geology and 
the Glacial Period. The first of these two topici 
concerns the physical changes and revolutions of 
the crust and surface of the earth aside from the 
science of fossil remains. In regard io the second 
topic, there was no urvanimity of opinion among: 
geolojfists in regard to the causes of the observed 
glacial phenomena at the time the subject attracted 
the writer's attention in the late seventies. The 
majority of the greoloigrets were settling: their minds 
to the conviction that the drift and transported 
bowlders wHs an effect of land ice or a grlaclal ice- 
sheet, but some still supported the marine submer- 
IT'^nee theory with floatincr icebergrs, a view that 
had been maintained by Sir Charles Lyell. The 
IceberflT theory was the mo^ obvious one that could 
have been propounded, but about 1890 it begran to 
be cast aside as bo tb fnn^egvAte aud errQoeou& 



ISO if\M.tf tnnKB CM fiowra Dakota 

Anothar error of that time in re^arci to the Glacial 
Perbd was tha general suoTjosition that there had 
«niuai in Pleistocans tima^ but one ice age only* 
Thiq vie'V was miintained by Prof G F. Wni^ht 
as late as the early nineties at which time most 
Ideologists in this country held that the evidence! 
pointed to at least two stasres of ^laciation. Later 
on, the members of the U. S. Geolocrical Survey 
recognized five glacial episodes in our northern 
states, and four have been traced out in Earope, all 
having long interglacial epochs between them. Oil 
the foregoing -iubje^rts the writer began aeciiring 
a cumber of books during the eighties and later 
and much of the literature published by the U. S. 
Geological Survey in one way and another came In 
his way. It may alio be added that for many years 
pirior to the Worl-! wnr. I bought the McClure 
Magazine when thit puhlic^tlon was of the form 
and size of th« ordinary magazine, contained much 
excellent reading matter, yet was sold at ten and 
later at fifteen cent? per copy. 

On W<>'^nesday ev^^nlng. February 26, 1896, a% 
about 7:45 o'clock, the clanging nf a belt In the 
tower of the city hall ringing a fire alarm roused 
peotjle into the streets. A winter mild soel! waf 
prevotapf-, nri^d there was no snow on the srround as 
t3«iii<»llv 's the ♦•n«e at that season. The bell Bound« 
ed the Vn'i^ nf ♦'he old wooden built deoot an<5 
C'>'^ne'»t,e<^ fri»l<?'ht house, but also rang In the tocsin 
o' wh^t w<<s tf» he a new era for Larlmore. In 
starting oot I beard a man. probably temporarily 



ftAlLttOAD OlVfSION TIMES 131 

#tj!t of employment, say "Let the old building: bum 
90 some of us can get work." The fire ha J 3tartei 
in thr freight house p-irt of the building and de- 
iiDUe the efforts of the fire department both that 
and the depot completely burned down. Work on 
fi new depot and freight houae began July 18th; in 
the meantime the depot force hai got established 
in the old Hasrhea buildinar near by. The railroad 
cn^ofigement decided to make Larimore the head* 
Quarters of the Dakota Division of the Great North- 
ern Railroad, hen^e a two story brick depot was 
erected with a connected brick freight house. 

While the depot wag in progress the work of 
constructing extensive railroad yards northwest of 
town was carried forward bv a large grading force. 
For the time being, a ten-stall brick roundhouse 
was begun and co'npl*=»ted during the year, Th« 
roundhouse was pi seed directly upon the section 
line road several rods west of the railroad crossing 
80 that the road had to be changed in order to 
make it circle around the roundhouse so far at 
necessary. A large coal chute was also erected^ 
about a quarter of a mile north of the roundhouse 
but it was not gotten ready for use that year. The 
new depot was completed in October and in the 
yards about four miles of track was laid that fall, 
six parallel tracks exclusive of the main one, beinfir 
laid at that time The upper story of the depot 
was divided into office rooms and in December 
beo^^n to be rccppfed by the division force, most 
of the m'^n coming from Grand Forks. Thus th« 
{division headquarters was again established here. 



f^; ifiJta't IfSARH »N tiOWtU DAKOTA 

The work inau-jrur^ted here by the railroad com^ 
paay was not all accomplished in any one year, 
but additions were made to it at interval in later 
years almost as Ion? as the division remained at 
L^rinore. In 1899 ten more stalls w*re added to 
the roundhoase, brincrin? the form of that 8tru2- 
ture to 30Ti<*thini^ of the nature of a half circle. 
The space of t'^o stalls at the fi^nther end of the 
new part was utilized for a machine shop in which 
to do repairing work on locomotives. A boiler 
house was also built near this part of the round* 
house. In the summer of 1901 a brick storehouse 
90 by 30 feet was hnflt a few rodi northeast of the 
roundhouse. ^ blacksmith shop which later was 
burned down, an oil house, a olace to store oil in 
barrels^ and 9 cfnd<»r pit completed the list of 
structures in the vicinity of the roun'^house. At 
intervals additions wf»rf» made to the trackasre of the 
yards, oarticularlv in 1905. when four more tracks 
were laid about thre<» quarters of a mile In lengrtb* 
And located toward the north line junction. 

The re-establ'shment at Larimore of the railroad 
division and on a scale bo much more extensive 
than before steadily increased the population and 
this led to a demand for mor.* housp room and the 
ere'»tion of nn^ny hon«e« for rentlncr, particuJarlf 
in th«» interval from 1 W7 tr, t904. Other tradesni^^ii 
came and '••^abmhei various trades and vocation! 
b'^re dMTinp' the nAme interval. The censua of 
IRqH hjid «rTv*n Larimore a oonnTat^on of 553 enlyj 
^hat for I9OO showed that there had gas^ m 



RAILROAD DIVISION TIISJS 13Sl, 

hisrease of the town population footing up to 123S 
mhabitants, largely, though not wholly due t^ 
railroad division influences. While the division, 
remained here its influence in regard to the matter 
of incoming population was progressive, so that 
the state census of 1905 gave Larimore a popula- 
tion of 1635 inhabitants. In general this increased 
population was orderly in character. 

The volume of business done annually in places 
of the size of Larimore during the early nineties 
has already been referred tOw If the population 
of the town, say between 1890 and 1896, had in- 
creased to seven or eight hundred inhabitants just 
before the coming in again of the division head- 
quarters, it can be seen that when the number of 
people residing here had increased to more than 
double those figures in the later division years, 
the amount of business done in the general mer- 
chandise stores was correspondingly affected. We- 
here have in mind the sale of groceries or food 
stuffs, clothing and other articles that people need 
most and constantly purchase. In small towns 
in need of more population than they chance to 
possess, every new family moving in is considered 
as being of some help to existing trade interests. 

The increased population of Larimore along in 
the height of its eleven railroad division years 
could not otherwise than exert an influence upon 
trade and business affairs in Larimore to a marked 
degree in comparison with conditions during the 
several years prior to the coming of the division. 
f he steady increase in popv^ls^tion invited in moi# 



IM FOBiiry YSARS IN NORTH DAXOTA 

trades aad occupatioos than had exiated here since 
the sumnser of 1882. Another local paper, a second 
Larimore Leader, was started here September 25, 
1S96, by S. F. Mercer who moved down from Ink- 
titer and published hia paper in what was then one 
of Olmstead'^s buildings, comer of Third street 
and Towner avenue. Its last issue was for May 1» 
1903 when it was bougrbt out by the Pioneer Print- 
ing Company. In the times referred to every 
business place on Towner avenue had its occupant. 
Several new firms in the line of small trades crept 
in where there had hardly been such ones before, 
and some other trade vocations were duplicated. 

Durins: the period under consideration several 
brick blocks came into existence greaerally where 
wooden buildings had stood previously. Larmour 
Brothers and L. A. Brooks erected what is now 
the Gailbraith hardware and furnitnre stfere on 
Towner avenue, in 1898 and 189&; J. B. Streeter Jr 
built what is now the Elk Valley Bank for a real 
estate and money loaning office; Brooks again put 
up in 1902 what is now the Yeoman Hall building, 
and in 1905 H. F. Arnold, who had sold his large 
farm interests two miles west of town in the springs 
of 1902, erected what is now the Wisner or Mer- 
cantile block on Towner avenue. 

At the beginning of the division era in 1896 tha 
Norwegian Lutheran church society erected their 
place of worship on Main street but its basemeot 
or church parlor was not put in until 1915 which 
made necessary the rai3iT5pr up of the buildir^ a 

.T\' fr-?t higher than it had ?tccd b<:"fcife. Tlie 



RAJUiOAD DIVISION TIMES 13&. 

Preaby terian society erected a new church during 
division times, beginning it in the fall of 1903 and 
completing it the next year. A Free Methodist 
society had been organized here and in 1892 they 
purchased the building that W. M, Scott had built 
for the Larimore Pioneer and this sect maintaineci 
itself here down to about 1914. Thus in railroad 
division days, including the Catholic and the Epis- 
Gopalian societies, there were six church organiza- 
tions in town, all having their respective places of 
worship. The Salvation Army also came in 189@ 
having their barracks at different places in the 
East End, but near Towner avenue and they re- 
mained here longer than the division did. 

Two pool halls and three restaurants exclusive 
of the Swain, Sherman and Johnaon Houses, were 
run on Terry avenue between Front street and the 
depot in those times, but the most marked change 
that this eleven-year interval produced was in the 
building of new residences. There had not been 
previously many houses to the north of Third 
street and in the Third ward, but that section of 
the city was mainly, though not wholly, filled in 
much as it exists still, from 1896 to 1904. During 
the same interval, a number of new houses were 
added to those already standing in the First and 
Second wards. Most of the dwellings now located 
in the northwest part of the city belong to the 
specified interval. Four one-story cottages similar 
in appear ace located on the north side pf Mala 
street and in the west part of town, were built by 
J. D. Van Flept. a lumber dealer pf t\^ tjnr.e, ia 



i;35 fXRTY YEARS IN NORTH DAKOTA 

1899, and a row of five story and half houses were 
also built in 1902 on Front street, in the southwest 
part of town by a local association because of noti^ 
Qcation by the railroad management that they 
were needed for engineers and conductors. Nor 
was this all. Different parties moved in from the 
surrounding country old buildings and had them 
altered over into houses to help supply demands. 

The original two-story public school building, 
erected in 188B, dimensions 52 by 32 feet, with a 
bell tower in the middle of its west front, was 
placed in the eenter of an otherwise vacant block. 
Twice in railroad division days it became necessary 
to provide additional school room on account of 
the increasing population. In 1898 a new building, 
the size of the first, was added to its rear part and 
connected with it. Again, in 1904, another part 
designed to include the high school, eight feet 
larger both ways than the other two buildings, 
was erected, all three being concected in a row 
lined east and west. 

The telephone system had come to Larimore a 
year or more before the beginning of division days 
and in the late nineties its exchange was located 
above in the old steam laundry on Main street- 
During the interval under consideration its local 
service was gradually extended around town. la 
1899 the city installed an electric light plant, a 
brick one-story addition being built on to the rear 
of the city hall to contain boilers, engines and the 
dynamos. It was first put into service the eveniRf 
i)f November 19th of the same yea¥. 



R^vniiOilD DlViSIOLSf TJMSS 137 

Beginning ia 1897 the publisher of this pamphlet 
was much about the Pioneer office, year by year, 
down to 1918. When I commenced work on some 
articles there for the paper, a boy of seventeen or 
eighteen years of a^e was working there but late 
in the fall he took a notion to abscond from town. 
it was said, owing to unpleasant affairs at home. 
After a considerable time he was heard of aa being 
employed on a paper at St. Thomas, but he never 
returned to Larimore except for casual visits. 
The Pioneer was then in charge of E. L. Richter 
who had been bred a telegrapher instead of a print- 
er and hence did none of the mechanical work of 
the ofRce except to feed and tinker on the presses. 
i remained in the office that winter and later, \t 
sot being necessary to employ any extra help for 
iome months. Much of the time the foreman 
attended to the job work of the office, but would 
commence work on the paper itself Wednesday 
afternoons and in the evening we usually worked 
at the case (once a week only) typesetting until 
midnight by the aid of kerosene lights attached to 
the tops of our upper cases. The foreman handled 
the editorials, communications and longer articles 
while I attended to the locals and some of the 
shorter headed articles. The paper was rv^n off 
the press quite regularly Thursday afternoons. I 
also attended to the mailing galleys which had 
been part of the young man's work before he left 
town. 

The next year was that of the Spanish-American 
war. The newspapers teemet^ with it but most cf 



tcB fORTZ YEAilS IN NORTH DAKOTA 

what they presented as war news was later stated 
to have been "manufactured." In comparison 
with the Civil war, this short one over Cuba did 
not amount to much There was much diacussioa 
in the Pioneer office among a class of townsmen 
who used to drop in and the talk mainly centered 
about the strength of the U. S. Navy and various 
war vessels. One evening, that of April 11th, be- 
fore dark, a train with 250 colored troops aboard 
enroute from Montana to Key West, halted for 
fieveral moments at the depot and were viewed by 
a large crowd on the platform. Later another 
company passed thru town. Movements of this 
kind carried me back in memory to the first year 
of the Civil war, when, as a boy in Connecticut, I 
had seen many long train loads of volunteers pass 
thru the town where I lived, enroute to the war- 
and which had been raised in the northern Nevf 
England states. 

The year 1898 seemed to be a busy one as the 
course of affairs was viewed from the stand point 
of the Pioneer office. There was a new foremafi 
present for the next two years, Ed. Tholin, the 
former one named Bertramson having gone to the 
war. There was considerable constructive work 
in progress in town and traveling troups came and 
gave entertainments in the city hall, the movies 
then being still future. There were said to be as 
many as thirty-two orders, societies, clubs and 
circles in town that year and the young men and 
women were active in respect to bicycling and 
|>arties. ^8 the war progressed telegrapiiic bul}>s- 



P.\ILKOAD DIVISION TIMES 13^ 

tins were often put out at the front of the office. 
These were more reliable than the great man of 
'war news" contained in the daily papers. The 
TTar ended somewhat more abruptly than had been 
anticipated generally. 

On September 12, 1899, there occurred a fire at 
Northwood whereby the business part of that 
place was destroyed. Shortly after the fire E. L- 
Kichter and myself drove down there, the former 
jpresumably having a business project in view. The 
people seemed determined to recover from the 
disaster with commendable energy. The office of 
the Northwood Gleaner had been destroyed with 
ftll of its contents, hence it was arranged to print 
the paper for several months in the Pioneer office 
in Larimore. The paper had been in charge of a 
middle aged man named Monteith who came to 
town and assisted in its publication each week. 
There was then a lawyer in town named J. D, 
Campbell who had a younger brother, Daniel L» 
Campbell, whose vocation was that of a printer. 
It was arranged in the spring of 1900 that he 
purchase what money interest there was in the 
Gleaner and with some printing materials that the 
Pioneer office could spare, reestablish the paper 
in Northwood. This was accordingly done by 
D. L. Campbell and Ed. Tholin. 

Looking back to 1900 it seems to have been a sort 
of unique year in regard to the trend of affairs ia 
the Pioneer office. E. L. Richter relinquished its 
management for about two years and engaged la 
Pther business, being succeeded by ):\is brothf ~« 



"fciO FOHTjr YEAKS IK N(>R'P» DAKOTA 

Dan E. Richter of Minaeapolia, whose proclivities 
bordered on the sensational. Instead of employ- 
ing: any young man of the regular craft who hap- 
pened along, he chose a couple of twelve-year old 
boys who lived at that time in the close vicinity of 
the office, and named Percy Montgomery and John 
Neff. The latter had a brother fourteen years of 
age, called Joe, who was about the office a goo4 
deal because the others chanced to be there, but 
the younger Neff boy was the most capable at the 
case. In that respect the Montgomery boy was 
quick-handed and expert in manipulating type. 
Until the summer vacation the boys attended the 
school but worked in the office two hours after 
school and on Saturdays, being a help at times in 
other ways than case work. D. E. Richter soon had 
the acquaintance of a number of the young men df 
town, especially some that were employed at the 
division headquarters and attended their club and 
party gatherings in which both sexes participated. 
In June of that year the annual fireman^s tour- 
nament of the state convened in Larimore during 
three days, making a carnival time, two merry-go- 
rounds being among the attractions provided for 
the crowds of town and country. This made busy 
times in the Pioneer office, since a daily paper, the 
size of two leaves of the Pioneer, was issued for 
each of those days and gold by the boys on the 
streets. In anticipation of the tournament, Dan 
organized and drilled a juvenile fire brigade of 
some twenty-f#ur town boys whose ages raaged 
jfrom twelve to sixt^een years. Thfiy were jjeatjy 



a.^.IIJiOAD DiVlSION TIMES 141 

uniformed and made quite a feature in the parade. 
The tournament over, affairs about the office be- 
gran to take on normal conditions. The schools 
were now closed for the summer vacation so the 
three boys mentioned were in the office the greater 
part of regular working hours, Dan was often 
absent on business around town for the paper or 
otherwise. On a few occasions two Mason boya 
eame in when Dan was absent. The three printer 
boys were disposed to resent this intrusion into 
their presumed domain and one day all five got 
into a violent quarrel, each party heaping upon 
the other the usual school boy ephithets used on 
such occasions, including: other objectionable lan- 
guage. The two boys whose presence in the office 
was sure to breed trouble, ceased to come there. 

H. F. Arnold, supposedly the editor of the Pio- 
neer, did little writing for it, leaving that work to 
D. E. Richter and others. Absorbed in the man- 
agement of his large farm and state politics, he 
seldom visited the office. One aide of the sheetsi 
the paper was printed on called "patents'* came 
each week already printed, then there were boxea 
of stereotyped plates a column long but graded as 
to length of articles and other matter so that any 
vacant space In the home print part of the paper 
could be filled in from an inch to a column length, 
the plates being sawn apart for anything less than 
a column long. As though these accessories were 
not enough, editorial sheets were also obtained 
weekly containing long and short articles both with 
and without headings. SelectioT^s <?ould be msd«i 



142 FORTY YEARS IN NOR^ DAKCmi 

froin theae aheeta and what was thought to be 
timely, so far as needed, was scissored out and 
(tasted on small sheets as clippings or as reprint 
copy. The Montgomery boy handled most of this 
sort of copy. Some of the copy coming in from 
outside the ofRce was written, but the boys could 
use it while Dan, I think, used a type-writer. I also 
did considerable work at the cases and what was 
unusual, returned to the cases the varied type 
that had been used in jobs and in spread adver- 
tisements. The region of the job cases in a coun- 
try office constitutes a foreman's domain and no 
one may use these cases without his permission. 

During several years past Dan had composed 
some poems and occasionally sent them to his 
brother to be published in the Pioneer. While in 
charge of the office he conceived the idea of gath- 
ering them together and with one or two new ones 
reprinting them in pamphlet form for distribution 
among his town friends and to mail to others. As 
this would involve considerable type-setting, he 
arranged with the boys to work extra time in the 
long summer evenings between seven and nine 
o'^clock or later, when daylight lingered, to put 
them in type at some agreed upon price for the 
^ork done. In that way the project with the press 
work was accomplished. 

For some reason or other, or perhaps more than 
any single reason, H. F. Arnold became dissatisfied 
with Dan's management of the Pioneer and his 
position was terminated in June, 1901. Charles 
E- Cox of Lakota who, as ^ boj h^d bee^ educate 



RAILROAD DIVISION TIMES 143 

in the Larimore schools, was chosen as manager. 
He seemed to have a dislike for boys and engaged^ 
a young man as foreman who was of the regular 
craft. D. E. Richter, with a wife and two small 
children, moved back to Minneapolis. It cannot 
be said that in the long run the management of 
the office was benefitted by the change that had 
been made. At that time the edition of the paper 
did not exceed five hundred copies and although I 
heard Cox say to a travelling man that he intended 
greatly to increase the subscription list, it remain- 
ed substantially the same. 

It was in the summer of 1901 that the^first auto- 
mobiles were seen in town as driven in by traveling 
men. They were somewhat crude and open or un- 
covered machines, seemingly crude in comparison 
with present day makes and they made considera- 
ble noise when running. As drawn up close to the 
sidewalk near the printing office, people passing 
by would stop in groups and inspect them, being 
particularly interested in seeing them start away. 
They were too few for some time to cease attract- 
ing attention. Like everything else of comple:^ 
mechanism, the automobile has gone through a 
gradual evolution upward from what were compar- 
atively crude beginnings. 

In September, 1901, the writer made a trip to 
Rhode Island and Connecticut, stopping four days 
in Buffalo where the Pan American Exposition was 
being held. Though a notable one, it did not quite 
equal the World's Fair of Chicago. Most of the 
time at the East was spent wUh i^elgetives in Woob- 



144 FORTY YEARS IN NORTH DAKOTA 

socket, R. I., and a week was also spent in the city 
of Providence. It had been my custom since the 
early seventies when stopping in any city to visit 
its public library and avail myself of its collection 
in its reference book room. In the public library of 
Providence there was a large room which contained, 
what would virtually amount to cart loads of 
encyclopedises. technical works, genealogies, com- 
mentaries, and many other works, often in sets of 
volumes, and which one could take singly from, 
the shelves to a near by table and examine at 
leisure. Another large room contained sets of the 
bound volumes of the prominent magazines of 
ihe last century. I availed myself of the oppor- 
tunity thus presented to take notes for assistance 
in composing some contemplated articles in the 
Pioneer. After a visit t# the old home place in 
Minnesota on my return west, I was again back ix^ 
Larimore the first week in January, 1902. 

When I came back from my eastern trip I {oun<| 
a new foreman in the office named Charles John* 
son who remained several years. Late in the fall 
it might have become evident to a practised eye 
that the tenure of Cox*s life was thereafter to be 
short as he was coming down with tubercolosis. 
Early in the winter he still came to the office as 
usual and would sit by the stove like one gloomily 
depressed, saying little to those about the place. 
Occasionally when some one called in, after briefly 
talking with them, he would turn to a small table 
and write a news local. After some time he became 
45<mfined to his boarding place' and was next takeii 



ItAILEOAD DIVrSK)N TIKES 145.' 

to tlie^Arvilla hospital where he diad Feb, 3, 1903., 
S. L; Richter now again resu:ined the management 
of the Pioneer office. 

May I, 1903> H. F. Arnold h«d the Pioneer in- 
corporated under the name of the Pioneer Printing' 
Company, the stock being capitalized at $10,000. 
With money obtained by the sale of shares, the* 
paper that Mercer had been publishing was bought, 
out so as to have no rival printing office in town. 
This incorporation project was &ot needed in the* 
case of a paper of the circulation that the Pioaeer 
had at that time. Mercer^s paper came with the 
railroad division and would not have long survived 
Its removal had its publication lasted until then. 

In the summer of 1900 the writer learned that 
the children of the Lloyd family Hving on the out- 
skirts of the northwest part of town had several 
pounds of type which they had in a small box. 
It was a kind called brevier and already somewhat 
old. This I bought of them and learned that it 
had been obtained from an empty house a quarter 
of a mile further north which had been left opea 
after the family that had last lived there had left 
with their household goods. I was also told that 
more of the type was in a chamber above in the 
house. Going there I found some in a partially 
broken up printer's case and more scattered on 
the floor mixed with a lot of millet seed from a 
torn open bag. Altogether I secured what would 
amount to about one- third of a case when full. 
There had been other small fonts in capitals be- 
longing to this amateur outfit, but these had he^ 



T<h6 forty YEARa IN N0H5W ^AMOIA 

curried off by different children. The press that; 
had belonged to the outfit was of an amateur kind 
the impression made by the platten being caused 
by pressing downward on a lever with one foot. 
Parts of the press I found in the barn but the only 
tihing belonging to it that was of any use to me 
was an iron tray or form in which the type couldi 
be placed for printing, its small thumb-screws on 
one side and one end bein^ in place, and measuring" 
8i by 5h inches, or fully large enough for imposing 
a single book page even larger than this page. 

Not much was done with the type the first year 
v5>r more, being bu«y in the Pioneer office, except 
t}o let some of the boys of the neighborhood use 
it for prints of the nature of proofs. Meanwhile 
an outfit was being built up by obtaining scrapped 
materials from the office that could be turned tc^ 
account. Later on some wreckage from Mercer's 
office furnished still more, including another smalls 
type font, enough to mare than print a book page 
and of a size next above the other. I was enabled 
^0 make metal composing-sticks (the implement a 
printer holds in his left hand while setting type) 
also a temporary wooden press on which two small 
booklets for children were printed. In January ^ 
1908, a common iron copy-press, nearly new, came 
into my possession, and after metal and wooden 
attachments had been added, it was by that means 
Improvised into a small printing-press on which 
many pamphlets have since been printed in small 
editions, usually not over fifty copies. Later or^ 
the outfit was somewhat further ^nlarge^. 



RAILROAD DIVISION HME3 14T 

The writer first saw the inside of a printinpr 
office at the age of ten years, having^ been sent to^ 
one on an errand. This was at Danielson, Conn.,. 
«nd while in th« office, the things seen there were 
inspected with curiosity. The sigbt of a handbill 
in type on a composing-stone with' wood-cut letters? 
in it, snggested the idea of cutting with knife an^; 
«hisel an alphabet of plain letters on blocks an inch 
square made by sawing up pieces of a disused 
screen frame. The letters were used for play- 
things, one at a time, by pressing them on paper, 
paint being used for ink. After completing the set 
it was found that eight or nine of them like P and 
R had to be cut over again as the curves had not 
been cut in reverse. Others such as A, H and Ot 
could be used as made and others such as B, C, D, 
by turning them, the letters having no points. At 
a later date a small font was made, letters a quar- 
ter inch size which would print bills three or four 
inches square on a wooden press that was devised. 
Jtist before my parents moved to Minnesota, I was 
sent on an errand to the office of a cotton mill. 
While but briefly there I caught sight of a copy- 
press, something I had never seen before, and at 
once I thought, what a good printing-press this 
appurtenance would make, and following theMea 
of amateur printing with real type came to mind, 
but with no expectation that it would ever be 
realized; nevertheless, my making of pamphlets is 
a sort of inheritance from boyhood days in the east. 

How the type abandoned in the empty house 
©ame there has not yet been accounted ^^ar. I v»a^ 



M8 FORTY YEARS *N JiORT® i>A«OTA 

able to learn aomething about the matter while 
C, E. Cox was maaager of the Pioneer office. A 
Pierce boy of the average age of a high school 
boy lived in town back in the nineties and worked 
for some time in the office. He sent away some- 
where and bought an amateur press and a limited 
variety of type for such jobs as card printing, etc 
He also bought a depleted case of body type, that 
in question. When he moved away the outfit came 
into the possession of Cox and probably led to his 
working in printing offices. With steady employ- 
ip^nt away from home, the outfit came to be ne- 
glected and finally abandoned. 

The sale of the Arnold Farm and subsequent 
building of the Mercantile block have been refer- 
red to on a previous page. Much having been said 
concerning the farm in the earlier part of this 
work, the disposing of this property will now be 
mentioned more in detail. In the middle nineties 
tine farm sustained considerable losses by hail; 
then, in 1900, there occurred a total failure of the 
wheat crop around Larimore, owing to drought 
for the first time since this portion of the state 
had been settled. Moreover, the farm, owing to a 
lack of conservative management where its in-, 
come was concerned, had become heavily mort- 
gaged. There had been in the early eighties di- 
versions of funds into outside speculative projects 
which in the long run had brought losses instep 
of returns, hence the earlier mortgages incurred in 
making final proofs continued to stick %) the farm 



RAlIJfeOAD DIVISI«^ TH«S8 149^ 

whereas some even of these might have been avoid- 
ed. Along in the nineties three or four more- 
quarter* sections on the west borders of the farm4 
had been purchased and where any of them werev 
mortgaged those mortgages were assumed. Onj 
tfte whole, at the end of the century;, owing tox 
loases, it became difficult to make ends meet. 
• After the failure of the wheat crop in 1900, the^ 
owner offered to turn th« f^rm over to a Grand^ 
Porks banker subject to any mortgages other 
tftan those the banker held, if any there were. 
The banker said that he did not want the land and? 
encouraged the owner to try matters one more^ 
year. The crop of 1801 wasgood, prices fair, and' 
profitable to the farm, but^the Mter was now sov 
heavily loaded witbitidebtedness that the owner- 
concluded no longer to risk matters. Toward the 
spring of 1902 the farm was therefore advertised 
for sale. E. G. Arnold advised his son to sell off' 
outlying quarters, clear up indebtedness, and keep. 
Section 10. But H. F. Arnold had a deal on with 
a local land association of that time who bought 
the farm and did not wisbto take it over unlese^ 
the headquarters section was included. Thirteen? 
quarter-sections were corn-prised in the purchase* 
which included alt stock, machinery, etc., then on 
the place. The price got was $56,000, while mort- 
gages, assumed by the association, amounted toi 
something over $41,000. My own quarter-sectioa 
was not sold at that time. The association held 
the land about two years, managed by J. H. Pifer . 
^hen it was sold off ta different n^ew oWiii^ra. 



150 FORTY YEARS IN NOftTfl DAKOTA 

The selling of the farm, judged in the light of 
succeeding yeara, was a great mistake. A series 
of good years and fair prices ensued during which 
/and, even in the hill country, rose in value. In 
1912 or about that year, while returning to town 
from a buggy drive across the farm with my 
brother, E. C. Arnold, I asked him if he thought 
that the indebedness on the farm could have been 
cleared up during the prosperous years follovnng 
its sale. He stated that he thought it could have 
been accomplished under careful management. 

Most of the equity money over and above the 
mortgages, obtained by the sale of the farm and 
its appurtenances, was invested in a row of old 
business structures with their lots on the west 
side of Towner avenue covering five of the lots of 
the southeast quarter of Block 77, most of which 
stood on the sites of the Wisner and Swanson 
buildings. Lot 18 at the corner (Storaker clothing 
store) was then owned by S. O. Bondelid, and if 
purchase of the lot and building upon it was ever 
contemplated, no such purchase was ever made 
in regard to the case in hand. As the case stood, 
125 feet of street frontage was acquired besides the 
south half of the old Pioneer block next north 
across an alley, already long owned in the family 
and which made an additional forty feet of street 
frontage. 

In all probability no other business man of Lari- 
more would have risked so much money in such 
dangerous property. The buildings were wooden 
feuilt with upper stories^ all of them old, while fifty 



RAILKOA® DIYieiON TlMSa Ml 

feet of this frontage wss occupied by a livery 
ttable- If fire once got a start in the last named 
building likely nearly all in the block would have, 
gone. On that account fire insurance in the block 
was high. But all this was in railroad division 
times when Larimore had a larger population than 
ever before. It might have been safer to have 
invested the money in farm securities on land, 
But at that time mortgages and money deposited 
by individuals in banks was subject to taxation 
according to a law passed by a Populist legislature 
in 1893. The majority of the members knew no- 
thing about finance and the law presumably was 
aimed in the first place at bankers and money 
loaners in retaliation for their high rates of in- 
teregt in those days. The banks protested that if 
the law was enforced they would be obliged to 
close their doors. In the incorporated towns the 
taxation might be six or seven per «ent of the 
assessor's valuations. Suppose a thrify mechanic 
or other individual, besides owning a home, had 
a few hundred dollars deposited ia a bank, his 
certificate at that time bearir>g 4-per cent interest; 
in such cases individuals might be robbed of their 
interest money under the guise of law as a sort of 
penalty for having any money in a bank. After a 
while, assessors, recognizing the injustice of the 
law, were not particular about inquiries in regard 
to mortgages held or money in a bank. 

H. F. Arnold was a member of the Commercial 
Club and certain other members suggested that 
it would be a credit to himself and to the town to 



152 FORTY YEARS IN NORTff DTAKOTA 

move out or tear down some of the old businea* 
baildinga fronting the avenue and erect a good 
two-story block on their sites, and arguments in 
favor of such a project were not lacking. The 
members probably never had in mind a structure 
coisting over $12,000 or $15,000 and said that such 
a block would pay its cost in rentals within ten 
years. The owner fell in with the project and 
during the winter of 1904-5 made preparations ta 
carry it into effect. A large amount of stone for 
the basement walls of a brick building 75 feet 
front and 100 feet deep, was hauled in from the 
country during the winter and brick and other 
materials were shipped in later. 

In March, 1905, it was announced that on April 
80th following, the train dispatcher force would 
be moved from Larimore. This would take away 
about thirty men, but the freight division was 
the main factor in regard to the dependence of 
the town upon the railroad. Were that to go also 
it woHld be a heavy blow to the town as things 
stood in those days. In some alarm over the an- 
nouncement, H. F. Arnold wrote to the railroad 
management at St. Paul, explained his plans and 
preparations and stated that if the freight division 
were liable to be removed he would not build the 
proposed block. In reply he was informed that 
the railroad company had no intention of taking 
the freight division from Larimore and was ad- 
vised to go on with his plans. This may have been 
true at that time, but the majority of the business 
men ^henhere would h*ve mo,r^ than hesitated. 



RAILROAD DIVISION 'TIMEa 153 

for quite generally, they distrusted the railroad, 
company, especially on account of reports of divi- 
sion removal annually circulated among: railroad 
e^mployees, as rumors, since about 1903. 

On the strength of the assurance given by the 
railroad management, and in the face of the warn- 
ing furnished by the departure of the dispatchers, 
H. F. Arnold proceeded to carry out his project. 
First, the livery stable was in part torn down and 
in part moved out; then a building between it and 
the corner property, called the "old billiard hall" 
was torn down. These removals cleared a space 
upon which to erect the new block. DeRemer of 
Grand Forks furnished draughts and specifications 
and sent up a surveyor to determine measurements, 
and levels, while J- A. Hollahan, a local builder, 
had charge of the interior construction after the 
brick walls were up. The excavations for the base- 
ment and its stonewalls cost upward of $5000 ere 
any brick was laid. The work of construction 
then progressed through the summer and fall. 

Agreements were made with tradesmen and 
others to occupy the building when completed. 
A part below was designed for the postoffice and 
an Odd Fellows hall and suite of office rooms were 
arranged for the upper story. A space in the 
northwest part about 50 by SO feet and comprisinj? 
one story was designed for the Pioneer office with 
several small connected rooms included within the 
space mentioned. This part of the building was 
the last to be finished. There was also a space in 
the south part of what is now the Mercantile stor© 



IS4 Pi^RTY YEARS IN NORTS l>AK01?i^ 

partitioned off and running" back the depth of tb© 
building, seventeen feet in width and which was 
saed about three years for a billiard hall. The 
new block began to be occupied in December, the 
finishing of some interior parts of it being in pro- 
gress at the same time. The part designed for 
the Pioneer was completed last of all and the presa 
and other materials were moved in from the old 
Pioneer building about the first of February, 1906. 
On the whole, the n^w block proved to be an ex- 
pensive fcuilding, costing upward of $25,000, and 
mainly built on borrowed money with mortgage 
securities. Under any consideration at that par- 
ticular time it was a rather hazardous undertak- 
ing. A one-story brick building of fifty feet front 
might have sufficed for the time being. 

The block was far under way, when, in October, 
the owner came to me ia the Pioneer office and 
stated that it would require some six thousand 
dollars to complete the building and proposed that 
I allow him to sell my quarter-section which had 
no mortgage on it, and invest its value in the new 
block. At first I was decidedly against any such, 
project and stated that while the valuation of the 
quarter remained in the land it was a safe holding. 
Both he and his father used arguments to the 
effect that I would receive more annually in the 
way of interest on the proposed investment than 
could be derived from renting the quarter and be 
relieved of the risk of crop failures; that I would 
save paying taxes on it, and further, that renting 
land was liable to deteriorate it owic)? to carelesa 



RAILROAD Dnri3io<«^ Ttmma 15S 

cWture and introduction of foul seed. On accounts 
of these repjsesentatLona the sale of my quarter wast 
authorized. The value of my part of the crop of 
t>hat year and, besidses,. money 1 had in the banki,, 
made an indiebtednesa to me amounting: to $6,600. 
The price of lami had risen since 1902 and thie- 
quarter was sold for $5,400 exclusive of several* 
hundred dollars derived, as stated, from my sha^e^ 
of the crop. For security 1 was given a mortgage 
on the two lots now covered by the Swanson build^ 
ing, but at that time thiey were covered with old. 
wooden structures, which was not ample security, 
i^ut at the time the deed was signed I was not 
aware ef other indebtedness that involved the 
block itself, and moreo,ver, was under the impres- 
sion that one of the lots specified was covered by 
the north part of the block. Had I known the facta 
I would not have been satisfied with the security 
mentioned. Thus all five lots became niortgaged. 
The year 1906 was rather disastrous far fires in 
Larimore. There were as many as sia; calls on tfc^e 
fire department during the year. Early Monday 
morning of August 20th, or after midnight, w^at 
was called the Kelly livery stable occupying most 
of the northwest quarter of Block 93, Front street, 
was burned down. Three persons, all non-resi- 
dents, temporarily sleeping in the hay loft perished, 
in this fire and there were lost besides, thirty-one 
horses, two cows, sixteen buggies or other light 
vehicles, and two automobiles belonging to some 
travelers who had housed them there for t|j^ 
night while they stayed at one of the boteln, 



156 FORTY YEARS W NORTH DAKOTA 

The next fire broke out about 2:10 Saturday 
morning, October 13th. This involved the destruc- 
tion of all of the buildings on the two lots next 
north of the new blcfCk and upon which 1 held the 
mortgage mentioned. The buildings extended 
back from Towner avenue about to an alley and; 
burned fiercely for an hour, the flames beating? 
against the dead wall of the block and heating it 
near the top so that the block took fire under the 
roof, but the firemen dragged a hose up the stairs 
and saved the building. The old Pioneer block 
next north also sustained some damage. Th& 
loss of the buildings cut off about $900 in rental 
money and the lots remained vacant until 1914. 
The third fire which was a burn-down, occurred 
after midnight, or in the early morning of Sunday, 
November 11th. An old building on the corner 
lot next north of the Strandness store used for a 
restaurant and lodging place, was burned and the 
lot has remained vacant ever since. The writer 
witnessed all of these fir>es. 

Beginning with 1901 more prosperous year* for 
farmers in the surrounding country ensued than 
had been the case back in the nineties. As haa 
been stated, much of the land of the hill country 
west of Larimore was in the hands of bankers and 
other money loaners. Early in the decade an as- 
aociation of these men began getting these landai 
back into the possession of persons of means, gen- 
erally farmers from Illinois, Icv^a end Mirceeota. 
In course of time improved roads, good houses and 
the big red barns characteristic of pro8per4>ua 



i^AlLROAD DIVISJGN TIM^S 157 

fcmin^ communities began to follow. In the* 
^arly period following settlement days the com- 
mon farm wagon is for a long time used with 
which to drive to town on all sorts of occasions by 
the farmer and hia family. In the first decade of 
the century it was noticeable that the farm popula- 
tion around Larimore were providing themselve». 
with buggies and other light vehicles. Another 
change which began in the same decade was the 
introduction here of threshing-machines with the^ 
blower attachment by which the straw stack 
forms itself. This new device ended the services, 
of the "bucker boys'^ mentioned pp. 117-118. 

The life of the town during railroad division 
times was more varied than now as there were a,t 
least 600 more population here than at present. 
Traveling troupes of various kinds often came 
and presented entertainments in the city hall. In 
the building season there was much carpentering 
work in progress and cement men had much to do 
in regard to foundations and walks. Any one visit- 
ing the roundhouse on a Sunday during the warm 
season would have observed the stalls all occupied 
by locomotives except the space for two used for 
a machine-shop, and even in that part there was 
usually one,. more or less dismantled, undergoing* 
repairs. Generally too, there were f^ur or five 
others on the tracks outside apparently awaiting 
a chance ro get in when some departing engine 
Fef t a stall vacant. At the same time, two engines 
were busy in the yards switching or making up 
height trains. The compapy intended to add 



>5S FORTr YEARS IN N(^5TS DAHO^fc 

seven more stalls to the roundhouse but this wast 
aever done. At all hours of the night men with, 
hinterns could be seen on or between the tracks, 
paSBing back and forth between the roundhouse 
and the depot; then there were the call boys froja 
zhe roundhouse also out in night hours to summoiv 
train crews with an hour's notice of departure^ 
and who had to know where each man was to be 
found, whether in their homes, in hotels, boardingf 
places or as roomers in some house. The last h^lf 
of railroad division times best presented what waa 
the characteristic life of those days. 

As late as 1906 the railroad company put in 
four yard tracks up toward the Park River juncr 
tion and did some other work of the same kind 
east of the roundhouse. All this did not look as 
if the company had any intention of removing the 
freight division from Larimore. It was about 
that time that the grove of trees on the east side 
of the track west and northwest from town were 
set out and gotten into growing condition. 

Every spring for at least four years before the 
final event, a rumor wopld be circulated among 
the railroad employees to this effect : **Next fall 
the railroad company is going to move the division 
away from here." This rumor reaching the busi- 
ness men of town had a disturbing tendency; tha 
tradesmen saw visions of curtailed trade and re- 
duced profits; heuse owners who had built mafiy 
dwellings in town to rent saw vieiocs of empty 
tenen^ents, on which taxes, none to light, would 
have to be paid whether occupied or not, and rev 



iuced rent charges if occupancy were maintained. 
After 190i this class of owners built no more? 
houses, thoug^h a few more good ones could haye< 
been rented. Theue were some fair houses built: 
m 1905 and 19G6, but they were put up by private* 
S^arties, mostly in railroad employment,, as homes; 
for themselves and families. 

In the fall of 1907 it became evident that tbe. 
removal which rumor had so long predicted or 
threatened, was at hand. Gradually the train* 
crews, yard and? roundhouse men were dispersed 
to other points, mainly ta Devils Lak^, The stalls 
in the roundhouse began to show an absence of 
locomotives and the yards a diminishing activity., 
One after another railroad fa^iilies moved away- 
leaving the tenements they had occupied emptys, 
that is, in most cases no other families immediate- 
ly occupied them. Earfy in November the writer 
took a stroll one Sunday thru the roundhouse and 
saw only five locomotives there, two of them ap-. 
pearing like as if in disuse. In the repair 8hoi> 
there were four or five men idle, apparently await- 
ing their assingmeats elsewhere. Subsequently 
the machineis were removed from this part, and 
the boilers from the boiler-house, but the yard 
tracks were left in place and ever since have beea 
largely used for freight car service. Lastly, the 
Uiost of the roundhouse windows were boarded 
up with shutters to protect the glass and this in ft 
way rendered visible the fact that railroad dfvi8i4>a 
times for Larimore were ended. 



IX. 

AFTER DIVISION REMOVAL 

n^HE removal of the Dakota DivigionheadquaPH 
^ ters from Larimore after all of the progreBs^ 
that had bees made since 1896, was a considerable 
setback to the town and a blow to its continisedi 
prosperity. The main thinir in the matter was the 
loss in population, and that both directly and in- 
directly aflFected other interests. Of men in rail- 
road employment as many as 175 had to leave and 
with their families, where any they had, took 
away at least three more persons to each man, f op 
some allowance needs to be made in the case of 
tanmarried employees and families comprising a 
man and wife only. In any town of about a thou- 
sand population anxious to pass that mark, every 
new family moving in and every new-born child is 
considered to be an asset. But it was not railroad 
people alone that left. Persons of minor and of 
duplicated vocations that could thrive only in 
places of at least 1500 population, also felt con- 
strained to go. Altogether over five hundred 
people had maije their exodus from Larimore by 
the following" spring. 

Not long after the main outgoing movemeut 
had passed, I asked a general merchandise mer- 
chant how trade had been affected. He stated that 
it had fallen off ten per cent. Ultimately it roust 
have decreased fifteen per cent, but the grocery 
trade was propped up somewhat by the dropping^ 



AyXlSR DiiVIdlON R-eMOVAL 161 

out of two firms. L. Stern, a Jewish groceryman 
who kept what he called the "Always Busy Store"" 
where the Mercantile Store is now, closed out and 
left town. This left the store room of the block 
vacant for about a year. The other grocery fircrt 
was bought out when the present Larimora Mer- 
cantile Company Store was started. 

Empty houses that were not owned by their 
occupants, were soon in evidence as was to be 
expected, and these conditions were continued for 
several years though meanwhile a certain process 
of elimination was gradually going on from time 
to time. Rent had decreased somewhat and the 
better class of residences in town even where built 
for renting, continued to be occupied. But there 
were a number of small one-story houses in town, 
gome of which were little better than hovels, yet 
in division times everything was occupied. Where 
occupants of such dwellings did not leave with 
the division force they soon deserted these housea 
for more commodious ones then easy to obtein. 
In course of time these deserted dwellings were 
either torn down or moved out. That was one of 
the processes of eliminting the empty dwellings. 
But a more extensive method was the selling of 
the fair story-and-half sort and moving them on 
timbers and wheels with a tractor engine to farms 
in the surrounding country. In both of the ways 
mentioned more than twenty houses disappeared 
from the sites once occupied by them. Some who 
had built houses for renting, sold them off their 
hands to private owaers ^scbaaces cffer^. 



MS P-OSTT YEARS VH NORffiT DAKOTA 

During the next half dozen years the writer 
remembers of only two houses being built in town 
and two others rebuilt over. L. F. Mason, whc 
owned considerable town property during railroad 
division days, stated that this form of property 
all over town had decreased in value 50 cents on 
the dollar. Larimore had now to depend agaia 
mainly on the merits of the surrounding country. 
The town had to adjust itself to changed condi- 
tions suddenly imposed, and it took several year* 
to accomplish this result. 

About the time that the division moved out the 
culture of potatoes on a large scale for shipment 
began on some of the farms near Larimore. It 
had long been known that the soil of the land 
hereabout was well adapted to the raising of po- 
tatoes, but they were thought to be too cheap a 
<?rop for special attention. In 1907 J. H. Pifer 
built a potato warehouse with cement basement, 
100 by 40 feet, having a storage capacity of 70,00(> 
l^ushels. He devised machinery to clean, separate 
and carry to bins the loads as delivered. Another 
and larger potato warehouse was built by th^ 
same party east of the first in 1909. Both are 
located across the railroad track south of the east 
part of town and have a spur track running past 
their north ends for loading cars. 

In the early evening of February 17, 1909, th« 
two-story depot that had been the division head- 
quarters was burned down, but the firemen sua* 
ceeded in saving the long one-story extension or 
freight house p^rt. T^e fire originated iq the 



AFTER DIVISION REMOVAL 163^ 

baggage room, tbence got inside between the 
plastering and the brick wall and run up under 
the roof and under the floor of the second story 
where water could not reach it, finally bursting* 
Itito room after room until all within the brick 
waiU had been completely burned out. 

There was at that time a long framed building, 
mostly two-8tory, that stood on the corner lot now 
occupied by the National Bank. It had been add- 
ed to in division times so that all of the space on 
the lot from Towner avenue back to the alley had 
been filled in similar to the Storaker store build- 
ing on the opposite side of Front street from it. 
The last sixteen or more feet had been a one-story 
house, but in division years had been used for a 
Chinese laundry. The part of the building next 
to Towner avenue had been fitted up for the 
National Bank which opened for business July 1, 
X902. The remainder of the building was used for 
a restaurant and lodging place with entrances on 
Front street. At about quarter of two in the 
early morning of June $, 1909, fire broke out in 
the restaurant and the long building was burned 
down, except that the firemen partially saved the 
bank part, though in a damaged condition so that 
later it had to be torn down. The beck moved its 
business temporarily across the avenue to the 
annex to the Elk Valley Bank building- A smal! 
one-story house near the alley, unaccupied at the 
time and located on the next lot south, went with 
the rest in this fire. We have witnessed all of tho 
large fires here since moving int9 town in 1893, 



160 FORTY YEARS M NOB'fH BAKOTA 

On July 12, 1909 work for rebuilding began oil 
bath of the burned sites. The railroad company 
erected a better one-story brick depot than what 
was thought would be done under existing condi- 
tions. The freight house part had been saved by 
the firemen at the time of the fire owing to a^ 
brick cross wall intervening between it and the 
depot part. The new was joined to the older 
building as had been the case before the fire. In 
the case of the bank building, a cement stone 
Btruoture sixty feet in length and the width of 
the lot was erected, two stories high. The bank 
opened in its new quarters January 5, 1910. 

The first moving picture shows to exhibit here 
was early in the century and in the city hall. 
Later in the decade a traveling tent show of that 
kind came and remained a week. Then, begin^ 
ning in 1908, shows were held more or less con- 
tinuously under different proprietors and for 
several years in part of a building then standing 
on the site of the Masonic Temple. The -'Grand 
Theatre," as it is called, was started in the annex 
to the Elk Valley Bank about 1913. The apparatus 
Bsed in the business has been much improved since 
the first decade of the century. 

The store room in the Mercantile block, as we 
have before stated, remained vacant for about a 
year, involving a loss of at least eight hundred 
dollars in rental money. In the fall of 1908 H. F. 
Arnold and others organized the Larimore Mei^ 
cantile Company which was capitalized at$25jQ0O. 



AlPTaS DIVfc^lOH RBMOTAL 165 

There had been conducted in town since 1895 a 
mercantile company store and this firm was now 
bought out. In establishing the new mercantile 
store the billiard hall in the south end of the block 
was eliminated, the partition removed, and the 
long narrow hall merged into the common store 
room. A small one-story building that cost $3,000 
was added to the rear part of block at that time 
dose to the Storaker building. 

The year 1910 was a drought year similar to the 
year 1900- In the fall the mortgages on the.'block 
and other real estate property would become due 
and n© sinking fund had been provided to meet 
this contingency nor very well could be as affair* 
turned after th« block had been built. In May, 
1909, H. F. Arnold sold his holdings in the Mer- 
cantile company to NeJs Hemmingsen. Then in. 
October, 1910, all the real estate properties in* 
volved were turned over to creditors. Clay Lari> 
more and V. S. Wisner coming into possession of 
the block. There was a mortgage of ten thousand 
dollars on it held by a Grand Forks bank b^ut this 
the parties mentioned were enabled to assume. 
With the party most intimately concerned, care- 
less of incurring mortgages and lacking in. that 
prudence which most business men possess, things 
had at last reached their legitimate outcome- 

The row of **company houses" as they were 
called, five in number and located in the south- 
west part of town remained more or less empty 
for years after the division removal. At on^ 
time only one of these tenementia was occupied. 



Mo ?OftTY YBAiiB m WOKT« »A«OTA 

Tenant families came and went seemingly in » 
sort of haphazard order as to their time of re- 
maining, so that sometimes,^ two and sometimes!, 
ouiy three of the tenements hai families living in 
them. In August, 1911, all of these houses were 
empty, their rear doors open or >anlo«ked, seem- 
ingly with the intent of allowing persons in search 
of a tenement ready access to inspect them inside. 
If a family contemplates buying or renting a house- 
about the first thing the woman thinks of is to^ 
look its interior over from cellar to chambers. 

The census of 1910 gave Larimore a population 
of 1224 people, thought to have been somewhat 
more than the town had in 1908. Until the next 
government census, Larimore appears to have 
experienced fluctuations in regard to population. 
In the spring of 1916 we found over twenty u»- 
occupied dwellings soattered over town which was 
ntore than could have been found a year or two 
previously. These included a few hovels and de- 
teriorated houses afterwards torn down or moved 
to other premises being next used for cow barns 
and hen houses; then occssiocally Fcnne one of 
the empty houses observed wert to the country 
as had more often been the case during the years 
following the division removal. A year or tw© 
after the observations made in 1916 nearly all of 
the houses in Larimore were occupied. 

We were not so much in the Pioneer office dur- 
ing the second decade of the century as during 
the previous decade and this gave the more time 
to work on booklets with our private outfit at otsr 



APTBR DIVidlON REMOVAL 16? 

heme place in town. In 1912 Earle Champion, who 
had been brouprht up in Larimore, and who for 
some time previously had worked in the office, 
became its foreman and did part of the editorial 
work such as gathering most of the locals. Each 
week I made it a point to be there Wednesdaya 
and Thursdays and often more time than that to 
help get oat and mail the paper, including soiiie 
work at the case. Besides, while Earle was mak- 
ing up each week's issue of the paper on the com" 
posing stone there were the mailing galleys to 
correct. Each winter I was in the office during 
working hours from Decemb<?r until April. 

The possession of automobiles, both in tow^ 
and in the surrounding country, had annually been 
increasing and beginning about 1913 auto tours 
by as many machines as could be gotten together 
were made from Larimore eath summer for the 
next few years. The first was as far west as 
Petersburg, taking in McCanna and Niagara; the 
Qext tour was to Park Kiver in 1914. In 1915 ten 
villages were visited or passed thru, the route 
comprising about eighty miles, being east to Em- 
erado, then north to Forest River, thence west- 
ward to Inkster and south to Larimore. The ob-^ 
ject of these drives usufilly vss to advertise a 
Fourth of July celebratien or the Chautauqua^ a 
band being taken along. A safe speed was main- 
tained and as much as possible, the autos, never 
much exceeding thirty in number, were kept four 
or five rods apart. In making the homewErd 
stretch there waaqp pretence o? |jeeping tog.ethj^V* 



K)S FORTY YEARS M NOMW DAKOTA 

th^ drivara sometimes diverging off on differeafc 
roads and the autoB otherwiee became scattered? 
widely from oH6 another. Usually the auto party,. 
Peaviag Larimore about two in th>e afternoon, 
would be back home between nine and ten o'clock.. 
In the case of the trip to Park River the party 
were entertained there in a grove during the even- 
ing and did not leave until about nine, reachingr 
home along about midnight. In 1916 a large 
party planned to visit Mayville, Sharon, Aneta, 
and intervening places. At Hatton, a storm in 
yie south threatened, so the party did not venture^ 
to go to Mayville, but they were overtaken by a 
drenching rain near Sharon. Some of the autoa 
reached Larimore after midnight and others came 
stringing back in a soiled condition thru the next 
day. During the same years Larimore was often 
vieited by auto parties from Grand Forks, Fargoi 
and even Minneapolis, the latter made up of busi- 
ness men out on inspection tours about the time 
that the grain was ripening for harvest. 

The first County School Play Day to be enacted 
here assembled on the school ground May 14, 191B 
and have become an annual feature for Larimore 
ever since that year. It ie estimated that upward 
of five hundred automobiles bring to town from 
all parts of the county grown people and school 
children to attend these exercises. Another annual 
feature of interest are the July visits during five 
days by the Vawter Chautavqua tent which is 
pitched on the school ground- TJie pret yieit w«i6 
tFuly 11-15, 19U. 



AFT«a Din^lOU ftElCOYAL 1691 

CoQira«jacing: about 1913, in which year a new 
Methodist church was built here of brick and tile 
if7ork, and extending: the time limit no farther at 
iifeaent than 1917, Larimore began to show signa 
w»f picking up again to some extent in a material 
way. Within those five years the Swanion build- 
ing, a one-story structure 80 by 50 feet, was also 
feuilt next north of and adjoining the Mercantile 
block, being erected in 1914 of cement blocks and 
trick; the Liberty Garage, 140 by 50 feet, in 1915- 
with walls of cement blocks, and the three-story 
brick Prevost Hotel built in 1916. There was not 
isnuch in the way of house building done In those 
•everal years, nothing that^ was wholly new, in 
fact, besides the residence of Mrs. Millie Tobiason 
in the east end of town. 

During the same years, life on the farms wit^ 
rural mail dalivery, the telephone, better house* 
than formerly, the big hipped roofed red barns, 
cultivated groves,, and diversified farming hay© 
all modified country conditions to a considerable 
extent around Larimore. During the World War 
prices and conditions were much in favor of the 
farmers and during that interval the owning of 
automobiles by them became a common circum- 
stance, thus revolutionizing former methods of 
driving to town and making evening visits quite 
practicable in the warm months of the year. In 
the same interval something of a rei^olutioD w^f 
being wrought on the Elk Valley Farm. The f ai m 
was districted off into half sections or larger areas, 
$L fair sort of house a^d oX\\eT b\|ildic|^8 built iipoR 



ilO FORTY YEARS IN WORTH DAKOTA 

each tract ^ith a grovvth of trees for windbreaks, 
i^Qd tenants on each of these areas of land. There 
were twelve tenant houses built on the farm ia 
1916 and four more the following year. F. W. 
Relnoehl, who had been superintendent of the 
Larimore public schools from 1911 to 1917, next 
i^came superintendent of the farm. 

It was mentioned p. 121 that a roller mill was 
erected here in 1$93. This mill stood just south, 
of the Imperial elevator. In the new century it 
<^hanged ownership two or three times and waa 
run only at intervals; then the machinery having 
been moved to Bainbridge, Mont , the mill wa9 
torn down in April, 1917. 

The Arnold family had control of the Pioneer 
from October, 18i>3, uatil Jaaaary 8. 1918, whea 
they sold their interests in the p^rtr to William 
Koche and H. E. Goertz of Ickster. The new firm 
took possession en the first day of February foT- 
iowin^. Subsequently Mr. Goertz bought out 
Mr. Roche's interest in the plant. In April, 1920^ 
9 removal of the place of publication was made 
from the rear part of the Mercantile block to a 
j^uilding next south of the Prevost Hotel. 

In the last year of the World War there were 
upward of fifty young men from Lt^rimore or th& 
near by vicinity who were in the militate or th^ 
naval service of the United States, either over 
seas, on the water, or in training camps in various 
states. None of them were killed or died abroad^ 
but four died at training camps whose names ajid 
dates of their deatha will be specified later. 



AFTER DIVWJOjy REMOVAL 171 

' Daria^ the winter of 1918-19 the queation of 
iSstalliDg for Larimore a sewerage system and 
w^terworka waa discussed. The result of the city 
election held Monday, April 7, 1919 was construed 
fts a popular endorsement of the project and the 
city council proceeded to provide for the issue of 
bonds and contracting for the necessary work and 
materials. A steam operated ditching machine 
and other apparatus came from Minneapolis and 
began work in July. Earthern tile pipes and iron 
water mains were laid as the ditching progressed. 
This part of the work was finished in October. 
The b;;iilding for tha ^^aterworks and the electric 
light plant in Block 94 was begun rather late in 
;the season, the laying of cement blocks beginning 
October 9th. The north end and east side waUli 
are of brick. About November 20th cold weather 
stopped further work until spring. Before this, 
two large covered concrete cisteiCB cutside and 
a large well inside the buildirg had been com- 
pieted. Work on the building was resumed April 
12th, 1920, and a chimney ninety feet high con* 
structed of tile blocks was begun that spring and 
finished May llth. Boilers and new dynamors were 
installed and the plant was gotten into operation 
by the 4th of August. 

During the year 1919 there were also built in 
town the 0. H- Phillips Company machinery depot 
with walls of cement blocks and brick front; thfli 
Masonic Temple, a two-story brick structure; 8cd 
the School Gymnasium, of trick and tile work^ 
j^pne of which were fully corfi plated ipside p^til 



172 ?m,Ti XEAR» IN HOWm DAKOTA 

the following spriag. The old Sherman House 
had been vacant forsome time when it was bought 
by J. Pifer, rebuilt over in 1919 and covered with 
»tucco on the outside, it was not finiBhed inside 
that year but was ready to be opened as the Hotel 
Violet, August 24, 1920. In the year last named, 
W. M. Edwards having bought the Olmstead 
buildings in Block 63 had them built over into a 
single structure and sta^oji oataide similar to 
the hotel, and for an undertaker's establishment. 
The Ohms meat market adjoining the south side 
of the National Bank was also built in 1920. 

In the last three years, the residences built are 
pot so many but that they can readily be named. 
in 1918 the residence of F. W. Reinoehl in the East 
End was built; in 1919 that of O. G. Storaker in 
the same neighborhood, but this was not complet- 
er} until the next year; in 1920 three small housefr- 
w^ere built by different parties, Michael Paulsoa 
in the southwest part of town; and those of N. A*. 
Nelson and Haakon Lysne in the Third ward. 
.'The first airplane to visit Larimore ca^me here 
in the fall of 1919 and made flights from the field 
south of the elevators. Most of the children and 
not a few adults resident here now saw an air- 
plane for the first time. 

To my mind the most marked change observed 
during our forty years residence here lies in ttia 
alteration of the face of the (jountry effected by 
the groves of cultivated tree^ on the fartos^ in 
contrast with the blank prairie bb ?ecn Ip ISSQ, 



Ijunmore Business Places attd Vocations in 192(K 



TOWNKR AVRNUE, Wc«l Side. 

S^aia House, (closed), Mrs. Bertha Masoa. 

Robert Black, Bakery aad Coofectionef jr. 

Taorval Joba«oo, Groceries, in south part of Ltppert Bail4' 
teg. — Ed. Lippert, Toosortal artist, in north part. 

Mrs. J. G. Bexter, Millinery and Dress Ms^king. 

Fcrd Ohms, Meat Market. 

National Bank, O. A. Hasen, Cashier. — Lambert Mason, 
Toasorial artist, in vfest end. In second ttory: G. A. Pkas^ 
Diotist. — ^Northwesterp Telephone Exchange. 

O. G. Storaker, Clothing Store. In same building: E6, 
ytraefer. Tailoring.— C. L. Eenway, Watches and Jewelry. 

Wisner or Mercantile B^ocH. Larimore Mercantile Com- 
pany, Nela Hemmiagsen, Manager. — Larimore Postofi^cev 
Thos. Regan, Postmaster. In second story: J. A. Walsh^ 
Attorney at Lasv; Ciaads LaDue, Insurance.— Peirce & Thorn- 
a^, Real Estate Dealers. — Dx. A. V. Thompson, Physician 9: 
Surgeon.— Odd Fellows Hall. 

Swanson Building, Co-operative Store, W. W. Reis, Mgr. 

Old Pioneer Building. G. W. Mowris, Tontorial artist.— 
E. Skardall, Electrical apparatus. — £. Litton, Drags and 
Medicines. — R. M. Pratt, Soft drinks, Ice cream and Confec- 
tionery. — Weidenhoeft & Doyle, Meat Market. 

Williams Building. John GraS, Merchant Tailor.'^ Vfilliama 
Pharmacy, T. R. Williams. 

TowNKR AvENUK, East side. 

O. H. Phillips Company Building, Farm Machinery, Lum^ 
Vcr, Fuel and Cement. C. M. Peatman, president. 

John Wurth, restaurant. 

Richard Johnson, Shoe Store and repairing work. 

Stiandness ftepartroent Store, Theo. Strandnc??, Prop'st. 



174 FORTY YEAR* IS NORT» DAKOTA 

Elk Valley Baak, P. L. Armi, presidtatj Psal E. Glaas 
Cxshier. 

Flk Valley Baak Annex. The Grand Theater, a moving 
(>icfure establishment, Fraak J. Ujka (u-ka) Mana(;er. 

Ed. O' Bryan, Soft drinks and Confectionery. 

Elk Valley Baak Propsfty; three doors, i. Room vacated 
i»:^ Ohms. 2. Geo. P. Arnold, Farrier. 3. J. A. Traioor^ 
Drogs ficd Medicioes. 

Qeo. M. Naylor, Hardware and Farniture. 

G. L. Sande, Clocks, Watches and Jewelry. 

Galbraith Bailding, Galbraith Bros., Hardware and For- 
piiare. In second story: S. J. RadcliS;, Attorney at Law 
and Dealer in Real Ejtate.-^H. C. Kreiger, Dentist. 

Masonif Temple. 

Regan Buildings, t^ro doors, x. Farajjrs Store, B. G. 
Kaugea, Manager. 2. Drdss Making* Hofer Sisters- 

Old Bank Bnildia?, Oiztr W. Bode, Phot>graphic Stadia* 
Ja second storyt Dr. VV. H. W»lch, Physician aai Surgeov 
.^W. L. T. Goodison,|Spectalist. 

Edwards Baildiag, W. M. E J wards, Uaieitaker. 

The Old Stand, H. B;nn*tt, Faroi Machinery. 

Liyery Stable and Veterinary, Dr. H. M. Eisealohr. 

Terry Avenue, East tide. 

Hotel Violet, owned by J. H. Pifer; Wm. Mortimer, Mgr. 

William Dresden^ Pool or billiard hall. 

Busy Bee Restaurant, Isaac Davis, owner. 

Larimore Pioneer Office, H. E. Goerti, Editor aad Pt©p'r, 

Hotel Prevost, Mrs. Prevosr, Proprietor. 
West side of Avenue: 

Buckeye Restaurant, L. F. Maton, Proprietor. 

Sorliie Motor Company, C. A. Sorlie, Managet. 
'Johnson House, Martin T. Johnson, Proprietor. 

Front Street, Either side. 

' ^asi End Garage, Andrew Carlson, Proprietors 



l-iberty Garage, Cooper Bros. 

L^rimore Vulcaaijing Works, E. I. Woods, Proprictgr. 
i.aricaore Cash Produce Stqre, J. A. Waldow. 
LAftojore Lumbir & Fa;l Go.-ppiny, K. D. Hsald, Mgr. 
B. C. Mtttsrliag, Machiae Shop, Auto repairlag. 
Ciif Watervyoiks and Electric Light Plant; Henry J. Wylie^ 
fiiipcriatendeat; John F. Anderson, night engineer; John Rock* 
<?ay engineer. 

O. Paulson, Blacksmithing and Wagon i^orl^. 

M. C. Kelly, Grqcery ftpre. 

fefAiNSxEEKT, Either side. 
Btacksmithtng and VVooi working shop osvued by Copper. 
Yeoman Hall. 

Anderson Paint shop, Carl Anderson, Proprietor. 
I>arImore Plumb|ng & Heating Co; B. J. Craton, Manager. 
Larimore Steam Laundry, (closed) 

Great UJorthern Depot, Fred IL Jones, Agent; Louis J. 
Trudeau, Ef press Agent; Reuben Gray, Baggage Mastet. 

Elevators. Elk Valley or FaroBor's Elevator, Hans Nid- 
ge*. Agent. — Northwest«ra Elevator, Carl Nijlsen, Agent. -~ 
{mperiai Elevator, Chas. Wood, Agent. 

O. J. Barnes Potato Warehouses, W. C. Miller, Manager. 

Standard Oil Company, H.G. Hanson, Agent.->6artlei Oil 
Company, Alex. Steedsmatt, Agent. 

Pray Lines. Arthur H. Bridgeford; Guitav Schafer. 

Larimore Necrologry, 1910 to ld2p. 



tgio—Lttke Whalea, March 4> Scott A. Smith, io St» 
Paul, March 2i. Mri. Margaret Mc Williams, May 4. T1»<MW 
J. R. VanSickle, August 9. 

191 1— W. E. HoU, May 2A. 

t9i2— John C. Larson, ^r Arvilla hospital* Qctober I<j. 



/t 



l?-3 ?e^I?K V3ATIS IN JiOHTH DAl^OTA 



1913 — N G. Lar'.tnore, ia Si. I.onis, November 18., , 

f9t4— O- A. Wilcot, F^arcb 27. Mm Sadie P. Vlathewa^ 
Jtilled near depol by horse team accideni, September 1 1. 
jalios H. Smith, November 16. 

191$ — Richmoad Faddea, |aauary it. Frank J. Stably 
March 25. Mr3 . Bridget Copley, ia Great FaU«, Moat, April la, 

1916—$. Straadaess, February |q J. A. Lyo^, Civil VST^tr* 
iityldier, May 3. Ckristiaa Lyane, Attgust 3I. E. C. 4rao}(|» 
vCitil War soldier, Septeaabsr 30. Jaojes If* Magoris, De- 
cember 3. Thedore Holtoa, Dec. 15. Samuel Watt, Dec. 31. 

1917— C. H. Olmslead, Civil War soldier, March 7. Lev* 
Carr, Civil War soldier, June 14. O. H. Phillips, Jaly i. 

1918— Patrick J. Lynch, Confederate Civil War spldiar, 
September 14. Joha F. Murphy, in Grary, N. D., Oct. 18. 
Roland LaShelle, in stale of Washington, Get. 22. Thomaa 
Mootz, October 27. Joseph Moots, October 30. 

{919— Michael Gass. Jaaairy z\. Mrs. J:>3jph Diily, 
Jane 4. N. J. Powell, August 22. Isaac T. Cobara, Nov, 9, 
Mrs. H. Champion, Movsmber 2$. Christiao Christiansen, 
L'ecenber 4. Mrs. Richmond Faddea, December 30. 

1920— Mrs. W. C. Miller, February 12. D»niel McNally* 
February 23. Mrs. B. E. Mitierling, March 13. Walter W. 
Webst«r, March ro. N. F. Barton, Civil War soldier, April 
17. Homer U. Smith, at Arvilla hospital. May 27. Theo- 
dore Johnson, October |. Peter Wasmnth, November 23. 

Necrology in regard tq several yot^ag people of Larimor© 
between fonrieen and tf?enty years of ages Ray Tice, Attg;tt3t 
22, 1914. In 1918; Anna Sandstrooa, November 26; Mira- 
bel Swanson, November 2S; Doris Dresden, December 17.— 
Raymond Spiclman, Jnne 10, 19x9. 

World War boys who died in Training Camps io 191$. 
Theodore Valerius, January 9.— Charlet LeoOlmsUad, 
April 27.— Vivian OlmBtead, October 17.— Frank Per 
t^yt, October 29. 



LRBFe"23 



